My mechanic tells me I may have a broken valve spring on piston #1 and thus the valve is of course holding up. If this is the case, how much time should it take for him to fix it? This is a B230F Turbo. Does he need to to take the header off, or can it me done in tack? Thanks.

I changed a spring on one of those engines a long long time ago. There is a big spring and a little spring. It was the little spring that I changed. I didn't have to pull the head. I put it on top dead center for the cylinder I was working on, Then I pressurized the cylinder by taking out a plug and used a leak down tester. This holds the valves shut so you can take off the spring keepers and so on. Allow the guy two or three hours for his expertise. If he doesn't have expertise, find someone who does. Hope its not too painful, Chris

Thanks Chris. I'll know today. He mentioned he might be able to do as you said. Is this true for both the big/little springs? By the way this is what caused the "rough idle" of my previous message. Thanks again.

Yes, both springs can be removed this way. If you take off the 'keeper' and valve retainer, both springs come off.

The head doesn't have to come off the engine, but the camshaft does have to be removed.

Now would be an excellent time to check/adjust valve clearances. The extra labor is trivial with the camshaft off. The mechanic must measure and record clearances with the camshaft installed. With the camshaft off, the mechanic then measures each shim and shuffles/changes them with new ones to obtain the correct clearance. It shouldn't add more than .5hr time and the cost of a few shims to do this.

It shouldn't take more than two-three hours total to change the valve spring on one cylinder. OTOH, if I had 175K on a B230FT and had to change one broken valve spring, I WOULD CHANGE THEM ALL! The additional time to change all the valve springs is less than five minutes per valve or again a .5 hour differential.

If your mechanic won't do this for an extra hour labor I'd find a new mechanic or do it yourself.

JohnB--Thanks for the detailed message. The culprit is the

#1 exhaust valve spring.

Is it difficult to remove

the "keeper" and the "valve retainer"? Do you need to

keep the valves "up" with air pressure to the spring

out?

(previous messge from Chris)///

Any special tools?

The mechanic is asking $389 for the labor to find the

problem (done) and replace the one spring@17/spring part.

This sounds quite excessive in pricing. He says he has a

special tool which must be used to take them out since

the springs are "recessed." Do you need a special

tool? Replacing all the springs would cost 100+ more,

though I like the idea. Then the valve job...we're

talking $800 at this rate. Help!

Thanks, PeterG.

(by the way, why do these suckers break in the first

place? I thought Volvo engines were bullet proof?)

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