How to Remove a Valve Spring

As an engine's camshaft rotates, it moves the pushrods up and down. Those pushrods push up on one side of the rocker arms, which in turn causes the opposite side of the rocker arm to pivot down onto the valve. The pushrod then releases its pressure on the rocker arm. The job of the valve spring is to quickly return the valve to its closed position. Over time, the strength of the springs tends to diminish, reducing their effectiveness. Before installing new valve springs, the existing springs must first be removed with a simple tool called a valve spring compressor.

Things You'll Need

• Wrench
• Valve spring compressor
• Needle-nose pliers

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Instructions

• 1

  Remove the valve cover to expose the valve springs. The valve cover attaches to the top of the cylinder head with several bolts. The exact number of bolts depends on the particular engine, but no matter the design, the bolts are located around the lip of the valve cover. Remove the bolts with a wrench, then pull the valve cover off of the engine.

• 2

  Remove the rocker arm. The rocker arm attaches to a stud located between the valve spring and the pushrod with a single nut. Remove the nut with a wrench, then lift the single metal fulcrum seat off the top of the rocker arm. Pull the rocker arm off of the stud to expose the valve spring.

• 3

  Attach a valve spring compressor to the valve spring. Note that the compressor has two claws. Position these two claws just above the valve spring, then pull the jaws towards the valve spring until the claws slide between the coils at the base of the spring.

• 4

  Compress the spring with the valve spring compressor. Note that the compressor has two handles. One handle is fixed, meaning that it cannot be moved, while the other handle can be moved up and down. Grasp the fixed handle securely, then pull the moving handle from its vertical position downwards towards the fixed handle to compress the spring. Grasp both the fixed handle and moving handle with one hand to keep the spring compressed.

• 5

  Remove the valve keepers. With the valve spring compressed, the valve keepers can be removed. The valve keepers are two metal pieces located at the tip of the valve. One keeper surrounds half of the tip of the valve, while the other keeper surrounds the other half of the valve. Together, these two keepers look like a circle. Pull each of the two valve keepers away from the tip of the valve with a pair of needle-nose pliers.

• 6

  Remove the valve spring. With the keepers removed, lift the compressed valve spring off of the valve with the spring compressor, then slowly allow the moving handle of the compressor to return to its vertical position and pull the loose valve spring out of the compressor's two jaws to complete the process.