Yesterday was just a complete and utter bust.  Next to no progress was made at all.  I spent a good portion of the day just trying to use my air compressor to pressurize the cylinders so the valves wouldn’t drop when I pulled the springs but could never get it to hold air properly.  So I am going to give the TDC method a try and hope I have it at the top of the stroke when I pull the springs because I really don’t want to pull the heads if I don’t have to.  I managed to swap one whole spring, seat and seal then remove another before things went FUBAR.

Here is a shot of the old valvetrain next to the new.  The spring is noticeably larger, the seals are of course the same and the seat is made out of copper where the old one looks to be hardened steel.  Not sure why this is other than to loose a little weight perhaps.

And this is the reason why I only got one swap completed.  The compressor tool I was using took a dump on me and decided to bend.  After that I couldn’t get it to compress the spring straight down so the valve stem was always too close to one of the retainer edges to fit the locks on.  Guess that is what I get for trying to save some money on specialty tools.  It was made by one of the tech members and seemed like a solid piece.  Maybe I can get something back for it being defective or whatever but I won’t hold my breath.  In the meantime I ordered the Comp Cams LS tool which I should have done in the first place.  Hopefully it gets here friday rather than monday.