All Small Six Worn valve seals vs worn valve guides.

[Rod Beauvex]

Is there a way to tell the difference? I recently discovered I've been doing my timing wrong, and while I have that fixed correctly now, it has made the oil burning problem  much worse.

I assume replacing the guides cannot be done with the head off the way the seals can.

 

[DON]

Valve stem seals ..can…be done with the head installed. Guides cannot.

 

[B RON CO]

Hi, run a compression test. If the guides are worn, the valve seats are probably also bad. If the compression test shows good #s, I would change the seals. The only real way to check the guides is to remove the valves and measure the inside diameter of the guides. A quick test, with the head off, and the valves out, is to put your finger over the guide, and pull the valve open. a good guide will suck the valve back into the head. Back in the day, it was normal to do a valve job after 100,000 miles. Good luck