question for fellow DIY'er
 

hello, i'm just wondering, replacing valve guides on my 74 911 is a job for DIY'er? or, take it to a shop or better yet a full rebuild. i only have 77k miles on it. engine is very strong. is it worth replacing or not? what do you guys think? thanks.

btw - my car smokes once in a while when decelerating.

What makes you think you need valve guides?

thanks, kurt. i forgot to mention. that my car smokes on deceleration.

Sounds more like rings. Does it smoke at startup?

nope, it doesn't smoke on start up. i posted question a few days regarding the car smokes on deceleration. most of the comments are valve guides. so, i don't know what else?

My 87 huff out a huge puff of smoke at startup, indicating valve guide wear. On the other hand, I use a qt of oil every 700 mi, so it needs to get a lot worse before I tear into the motor. IMO, even if you have a little smoke, it is overall oil consumption that should be the deciding factor.

It is a do it yourself job if you have:

1. Hot tank to wash and heat up the head just before you punch out the valve guide
2. means to machine the surface of the head before the head job
3. means to hone the valve guides to the exact size
4. Valve grinder because you are not putting it back just like that
5. Valve seat cutter and blade before the newly cut valve goes back in
6. Associated punches with the right size
7. Valve spring compressor, and a way to measure the strength of the springs
8. tools to finish the valve job
9. associated tools to remove and disassemble the engine.
5.

I would say to some up a lot of blah blah..if you have never done guides in "anything" b4 ,,,this is not a good place to start. Not that it is magical or something, but when they are in you have to have the seats redone anyway....so if you do not have the rest of the equipment...you wont be saving much., maybe spending more ? jmo

If you _really_ need valve guides and want to DIY much of the work, most would do the teardown themselves but send the heads out to a machine shop for the actual guide work. Wayne's engine rebuild book will give you a good idea of what's involved.

The valve guides on my 74 2.7L were replaced at 90K miles. Sometimes when I started it there would be only a small puff of smoke and sometimes it looked like I was fogging mosquitoes. It was strictly on startup that I had the smoking problem.

If the only problem you have is an occasional puff on deceleration, I would do nothing.

As far as DIY, drop the engine, pull the heads and take them to a professional shop for a complete valve job.

thank you all for your comments. i truly appreciate it. i guess, this something that's not really for a weekender job type of deal. thanks again.