Valve Guides Help Please!

[OldIron82]

Finishing up the valve seals on the passenger side head off the early 6.9 I'm working on, I have made a horrible discovery that the guides are wore. The driver side head I finished the other day is super tight. Little to no play at all, I was thoroughly impressed. Now this side has me scratching my head asking, why? Two of the intake ports are wet, not dripping wet but certainly moist. I had my dad look at it and he said yes they are wore but nothing red flag worthy in his opinion IF it was a gas engine. He said he has almost no experience with diesels and does not know what is permissible. Since its a diesel and should not have much vacuum I'm hoping it's okay. What say you gentlemen about the situation? What would you say about possible new guides? This was supposed to be a reseal/stud and drop in engine. I don't want to put machine work into this one if I don't have to.

*MAJOR QUESTION* Does the turbo oil feed line have anything to do with this? Reason I'm asking every install guide I seen has the port at the lower left of the engine designated to feed the turbo. This guy had a makeshift pipe coming out of a port in the top rear of the engine on the right side that fed the turbo with a hydraulic hose. Is it possible he tapped into a upper oil gallery that feeds the lifters and possibly starved the head of oil? Sounds beyond crazy but I can't come up with why the driver side head is tight but the passenger side is wore.

Very frustrated! I want to put her together in the worst way and I keep getting held up.

Thanks,

OI82

 

[CDX825]

Bump for interest.

 

[riotwarrior]

Sugdest you may consider the idea and take heads to engine machine shop...have both checked if one in doubt..do them both now!!

I highly doubt turbo feed line did this.

JM7.3CW

 

[OldIron82]

I spoke with Mel at Conestoga today... What a awesome, knowledgeable cat! Helluva nice guy! Got many questions answered.

@ riotwarrior: Yup. Tomorrow I'm going to a shop and having them checked. If they need work, oh well. I'm already one month behind, what's a little more time. Peace of mind is worth it.

 

[riotwarrior]

When it comes to these engines one does NOT want to put chance...to chance...with guides...dont ask me how I know this....

 

[typ4]

Make sure you put on new valve springs now. They will fail after many miles if the guides let them get cooked.

 

[jaluhn83]

No relation to the turbo oil feed. That port is off the far end of the lifter galley, but on the driver's side. If there was a low lifter oil pressure issue I'd expect lifter clatter long before guide wear issues.

How did you check the play? The only accurate way is with a dial indicator. You can do it by hand, but it's very subjective.

I would guess that at some point the one head was rebuilt or replaced and the other was not.

Would be wise to plan on eventually doing the heads, but it's not something I'd worry too much about until you have time/money. Maybe replace the valve springs if you're really worried. Yes, there's some chance it will drop a valve, but very very small chance unless the guides are just totally shot (as in 1/16" clearance). These are tough engines, in an ideal world everything would be perfect, but there's certainly plenty of worse worn out engines running around out there.