Started tearing down a spare 2.0 motor that I have and notice right off the bat that someone had been in the ports with their Dremel tool, see pic.
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So I go to remove the valve spring with my cool pneumatic valve spring compressor and when I press the spring in the two small keepers are "stuck" in the grooves in the valve stem. So with a good pickin' they pop out and the grooves in the valves show some pretty good signs of wear. Is this normal for bigger valve head?
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If someone could chime in here and tell me if they have seen this before. The guide to valve play still feels tight but the wear in the stem grooves is so bad that the valves will not come out of the head without some "fileing" Here are some pics of the valves
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yes, it happens. Filing happens...
could be to much spring or poor push rod geometry.
Can you show the pneumatic valve compressor tool?

Rich

30 years ago I was warned, and for good reason, not to use stainless steel valves because the material was soft. I'm guessing that alloys have changed since then, and that's no longer an issue. These valves appear to be of the soft variety about which I was warned. I've seen this before in both SS valves and the cheap valves that come in the Spanish T2 and Vanagon replacement heads. I've even seen them break off in the area of the grooves.

The Cap'n

Here are pics of that cool tool. I love cool tools!
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where can I get one?

I just looked at the comp cams website and it looks like you can still get it from them. There phone is:800-999-0853. I got this one by luck when my business bought all the parts and accessories and tools of a Kawasaki, Sea Doo, Arctic Cat dealership. SCORE!!!!!

Back to the valves. I just checked the push rods and they are aftermarket cro-moly push rods and they are about 8 to 10 mm short. Looks like someone wanted to put in swivel feet but forgot the "feet". It had standard 2.0 rockers.

The grooves fret like that when the keepers are not ground to keep them from butting together. When the keepers butt they float on the valve. The idea is to promote valve rotation.

When switching to SS valves the keepers should have been ground, which would allow them to lock onto the valve stem, preventing them from hammering up and down, fretting the keeper grooves.

Using SS valves and ground, hardened keepers we have no issues with fretting on our race engines which see 8,000+RPM's

Also had this happen on a set of fairly fresh 2.0L heads. Found that the keepers weren't clearanced enough. The keepers were stuck in the grooves, created ridges on the stems and we couldn't remove the valves from the guides without some grinding. Ended up replacing the exhaust valves and guides (and properly clearanced the new keepers).