Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 16:48:40 -0400
Reply-To: VW Doka <vw.doka@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: VW Doka <vw.doka@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: AMC valves, Boston Bob
In-Reply-To: <696704.58787.qm@web33501.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
From my experience, they start to show significant valve stem wear
around 20k miles. Failure around 40k miles.
The bad batch story is just that... a story. The AMC heads sold today
still use the same cheap, crappy exhaust valves as the ones from 5
years ago. You can buy the same valves brand new for about $7. A
good exhaust valve for the WBXer runs about $35.
Not conjecture, not really opinion... just my experience.
Cheers,
Jeff
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 4:13 PM, Robert Keezer <warmerwagen@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Very logical . After all, how would a company like this stay in business year after year with notoriously bad valves?
> It just did'nt make sense.
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> I think Kens' answer is reasonable fro me to go by.
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> One bad batch has perpetuated this myth all these years. I never believed it .
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> Most of my Vanagons sold with AMC heads and never a complaint.
> Which is why I asked, how long do they last? This bad batch head?
>
> If they went bad in 5 years, I would'nt expect to hear from the buyer .
> One year or less maybe . Less than 6 months probably.
>
> Robert
> 1982 Westfalia
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> --- On Tue, 5/26/09, Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET> wrote:
>
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> From: Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
> Subject: Re: AMC valves, Boston Bob
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Date: Tuesday, May 26, 2009, 12:18 PM
>
>
> I spent a bunch of time on the phone with Bob talking about this subject
> as well, but I believe all of this fear and loathing about the AMC
> valves is due to a bad batch of these heads back about 6 or 7 years
> ago. I have never had a failure like the one Bob always warned me about
> and I never changed the valves from the stock ones. Recently I had a
> pair of AMC heads that I installed on an engine about two years ago come
> back into my possession (engine threw a rod). The heads had about 18k
> miles on them. I took the heads to a machine shop to have them checked
> and a valve job done before selling the heads to a list member. I asked
> the machine shop about the condition of the valve keepers, grooves on
> the valve stems, etc. He said that he had inspected them and they were
> like new condition and that they valves themselves were also in like new
> condition. I can say that I have never had an AMC head fail in 11 years
> of installing them. I have never had one that I have sold to a customer
> fail due to a bad valve either. Anything can fail if you abuse it, or
> improperly install it, or don't correctly adjust the valves, etc.
> However I have never found the stock AMC valves to have any issues. If
> you want to spend extra money on "better" valves and install them only
> to have them fail (I have known this to happen) that is your choice.
> However the stigma against using the AMC heads out of the box is totally
> unfounded as far as I am concerned.
>
> Just my experience,
> Ken Wilford
> John 3:16
> www.vanagain.com
>
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> Zoltan wrote:
>> One important fact I learned from Bob, was that the AMC heads have loose keepers. The two halves meet each other to touch, thus grabbing the valve stem, being loose, they travel up and down until they break through the grooves and the valve free to move deeper inside and then operated by the piston to have it pushed up.
>> So, the first thing I recomment to anyone I meet is to have the keepers ground at their sides until they don't touch each other.
>> Bob was very happy with the AMC heads and tossed the old ones for their metal fatigue. In his experience, it was not worth chancing all the troubles by putting the old ones back.
>> He liked the better material the AMC heads are made of.
>> So, the keepers must be fixed first.
>> Zoltan
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