First I need to say Thank-you for your message, Stealthfti! I am continually just blown away by all the helpful advice that I get from this board. Your post here was especially useful - now I really feel like I can do this myself. And let me extend those thanks to the others who have posted, and to Randy as well. Without this I'd be lost... stuck like everyone else driving a newer car, making huge payments, going to the dealer for repairs. Doing this myself (like I've done for about 10 years now, since I got my first car) is so much more rewarding. Yes your site is very helpful.

Anyway, I read your post, Stealthfti, but need to re-read it to digest everything - lots of information there! So I printed it and will read it as bedtime reading tonight.

But let me just make a quick reply, with a picture of the one valve I successfully extracted tonight, in the midst of other obligatory activities I had to take care of:



I also measured along the stem with an expensive micrometer I borrowed from a machinist friend, and found it to be 0.3135" in diameter all along the shank. I am serious, the mic only goes to 0.001" but the line always lands around 0.3135! And it didn't feel too loose in teh guide either.

So I need to think about how far I want to go with this project. When everythign was assembled on my engine last week, I got decent compression values. Number 4 cylinder appears to have a bit of oil contamination on teh spark plug threads. I hope it's just a leaky stem seal, which will be remedied with this new head.

I believe my camshaft is an "L" grind. And the cam in the new head is too - both have same part number stamped in: 1000132 and there's an "L" stamped on both shafts, too. For some reason, this number is not found in that camshaft chart someone posted on scribd.com (sorry I can't remember where to find it).

Ok, I need to get to bed. I'm on this message board way too much! Need to limit my usage at work too...

But thanks again for all the advice. I will keep in touch with new updates and thoughts. For now, let me soak this all in...
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1991 740 automatic, sedan, B230F Burgundy/Tan Leather