OTC 4572 Large Valve Spring Compressor , black

A truly Great tool to remove springs. But you can also adjust it to just barely compress the spring & easily put the keepers back with one push. First I adjusted the top & bottom rods so it would just push the spring down enough to allow keepers to drop in. Then cut an piece of vacuum tubing to same length as the spring adapter you are using which will be placed in the adapter. Place your keepers on the valve stem, I apply a drop of oil to help them stick. Then use the valve spring as normal. The idea of the tubing is that it surrounds the keepers so they cant fall outward & of course the hollow center of the tube allows room for the valve stem to come up. You can aslo use a tube that's smaller that outside dia. of the keepers and it will act to push down on them but I found larger worked for me. To help "Push" the keepers down, I put a small bolt in the tubing, head side toward the keepers, find a head size that allows the corners to dig into the sides of the tubing so it will provide resistance. The bolt needs to be short, like 1/2 or 3/8 inch so there is still room for the valve stem to travel up the tube. position the bolt. I position the bolt in tube so it in just enough to allow some tubing to surround the keepers and the weight of the bolt is on top the keeprs holding them. Then one easy push and a jiggle and release and keepers are in. I only missed 3 times on 1st attempt out of 32 valves. Alternatively you could used a rubber stopper or cork rather than bolt but hard steel leaves no slivers to clog your oil system.Of course this works perfect to remove springs and of corse your heads must be OUT. There are some arguments here on how to use this. Instructions say to adjust rods such that depressing top handle gives you a snug fit then use the T-bar ob bottom to turn the rod and compress the spring. Do it that way if you have several hours to waste and especially to grind up the top of your valves by the rotating cap on them. It may be necessary to do that for tough springs partly especially if youre a non muscle bound wimp like me. Adjust the top handle always so its about 45 degrees down when you first make contact because the mechanical linkage fights against you from 0-45 and its really hard to push down if handle is upwards when you start, I guess that's why they say turn the rod. But for average springs it easy enough. Built like tank its a vey heavy duty tool which will out last your lifetime.

I'm rebuilding a 1984 Porsche 944 and tore the motor down last year, and now I'm working on putting it all back together. Plenty of work has gone into this project, and doing the valves was next on the agenda. I first tried the "cheap deal" at Harbor Freight and it's "clamp and compress" design just didn't cut it - the one at Napa did better, but still not good enough - Porsche uses a double-spring on their valves so you need something that does the full clamp. Then I tried the local tool rental places (theirs was a monster - and not designed for reaching into a head), some pawn shops, Pep Boys and finally a place called Performance Auto where I "borrowed" one. That tool almost worked, but damn if it didn't flex, expand, and basically, suck at getting the springs out - it did work, but I knew I'd need something better to put the valves back in once I'm done working on them - so I returned the "borrowed" tool and started digging and found this one.This tool was heavier than the "borrowed" one, but not as insane as the tool rental place had - the one they had would have been ideal for a tractor I think. None of the others I saw, short of spending $120 at Napa would have had a shot at it - and those weren't much different than the borrowed one.This tool really did a great job - and I even made the mistake of putting in 7 of the 8 valves before I realized that I forgot to put in the new valve seals!! This tool make getting the valves back out, putting in the seals and putting them back in a breeze.Does this clamp onto the valves? Kind of - the clamping bit with the handle is more for placement and mlld positioning - the real work happens with the screw bit opposite the handle.What about tool flex? None to speak of. This thing is made of thick metal - about 3/8" thick all around - including the swiveling bars near the handle. It didn't flex at all - and the Porsche springs are some TIGHT springs too - lesser tools were made "bitch" easily by the cylinder head, flexing, warping and otherwise not doing their job, all because of this old Porsche, however, this tool stood strong and pressed on.I strongly recommend this tool for anyone doing work on an engine that needs to push into the heads to remove the valves - this tool makes the job easy.