[Walt Fricke]

I'm going to use 993 valves in my 3.2 heads. The 993 valves are a nominal 8mm stem, so the old keepers, aka locks, won't work. So along with valves I ordered 24 new 993 keepers. The springs and retainers will come later as a set. The keepers and valves just arrived.

Normally one is told to be sure that the two keeper halves don't touch when installed. I assume this is so that the retainer will firmly wedge the keepers against the valve stem, so there can be no relative movement, no fretting, etc.

The last set of new keepers I bought, for 9mm valve stems, were "crushed" - they would not clip into the grooves. I solved that by grousing to the supplier, and just using the old keepers, which fit fine and had a little clearance so they didn't touch.

Here, the keepers touch. I haven't measured the slop, but it is considerable. As a pure guess, maybe 0.012 (3 times valve lash) minimum side to side movement with the two in place.

I am not looking forward to wearing my fingers to a nub trying to sand all of these down with wet/dry paper on a glass plate. I can think of no way of holding them so that a power tool could be used. We aren't talking a thousandth or so.

What gives? Any ideas? Is this one of those "they are all that way" things.

Walt (feeling Grinchy)