Engine valve and seat grinding..

Sioux made valve grinders since the early 's. A must have single use machine for any antique car enthusiast such as myself. In the early days, up until the 's and introduction of unleaded gasoline, the valves on cars needed resurfacing between 50,000 to 70,000 miles. And it was cheaper to grind the old valves rather than purchasing new.









After cleaning up the valves. The flat end is ground square to the stem. Then a small 45 degree chamfer is added flat end. Making for easier insertion in the head of block. But most important for truing the valve in the Sioux grinder head. Along with setting a stop making all valves the same length. Only old timer's know and understand this. I have read several poster's saying that they cannot get the valve to run truer than .005&#;. Saying that the three jaws in the work-head is not enough to hold the valve stem true. When in practice The back end of the work-head has a stop with a reverse taper. That center's the valve stem. And the three small jaws grabs 4&#; of 5&#; toward the valve head. And indeed makes for quick and accurate setup. Putting a test indicator the revolving valve reveals the TIR (Total Indicator Reading) of less than .001&#;.

This is a Sioux Portable Valve Seat Grinder. The kit contains the power unit, numerous grinding wheels, positioning shafts, and diamond wheel dresser. This tool in a must have for quick and accurate valve seat grinding of flat head engines. The seat can be resurfaced without removing the engine from the car. Being that most early cars were valve in block design this was a very popular tool to own. However it's still can be used in valve in head engines. But many home mechanics just drop the heads off at a machine shop for someone else to do all the valve work...

My Sioux Valve Grinder # 645L and Portable Seat Grinder S Sioux made valve grinders since the early 's. A must have single use machine for any antique car enthusiast such as myself. In the early days, up until the 's and introduction of unleaded gasoline, the valves on cars needed resurfacing between 50,000 to 70,000 miles. And it was cheaper to grind the old valves rather than purchasing new.After cleaning up the valves. The flat end is ground square to the stem. Then a small 45 degree chamfer is added flat end. Making for easier insertion in the head of block. But most important for truing the valve in the Sioux grinder head. Along with setting a stop making all valves the same length. Only old timer's know and understand this. I have read several poster's saying that they cannot get the valve to run truer than .005&#;. Saying that the three jaws in the work-head is not enough to hold the valve stem true. When in practice The back end of the work-head has a stop with a reverse taper. That center's the valve stem. And the three small jaws grabs 4&#; of 5&#; toward the valve head. And indeed makes for quick and accurate setup. Putting a test indicator the revolving valve reveals the TIR (Total Indicator Reading) of less than .001&#;.This is a Sioux Portable Valve Seat Grinder. The kit contains the power unit, numerous grinding wheels, positioning shafts, and diamond wheel dresser. This tool in a must have for quick and accurate valve seat grinding of flat head engines. The seat can be resurfaced without removing the engine from the car. Being that most early cars were valve in block design this was a very popular tool to own. However it's still can be used in valve in head engines. But many home mechanics just drop the heads off at a machine shop for someone else to do all the valve work...

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Time to learn a new skill.

I am in the process of building a new motor for the eight and a half. I have been thinking about the valves a lot lately. Wondering just what all is involved in a simple 3 angle valve job and how difficult the actual act is and what equipment is neccesary.

I have a co-worker who is some kind of idiot savant/mechanical genius/epic bodger. In his current list of cars is a Vespa 400, 53 Studebaker pickup, 78 Corvette, a 50's Studebaker Hawk and a 69 Camaro. He also collects antique tractors and all sorts of other vintage things. If anyone had the info I needed it would be him. I asked about valve seat grinding and the next day he showed up at work with this box

This awesome 's cantilever box is stuffed full with equally old valve seat grinding tools.

The grinder itself is just an old drill motor with a hex drive

The arbors are pretty much what I expected them to be

The pilots were a bit of a suprise. They wedge themselves into the valve guides. Since this setup is so old it does not have any pilots that would fit anything as small as a 7mm valve guide. So I cannot use this, but I can learn from it.

And the stone shaper is simpler yet better than I had imagined.

I aqcuired a few items earlier this week when I decided to try this

The Die is a very odd size. That makes them either very expensive or very cheap. I got lucky and found it cheap. 9/16"-16 to suit grinding stones made for old black and decker valve seat grinders. A 1.125" stone, a new 7mm drill bit and some 7mm drill rod.

Some scrap 1" aluminum rod sacrificed itself to the lathe to become my arbor

Put it all together and I have this

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The end is smiply 3/8" so it fits into a right angle pneumatic drill

Ready the junker cylinder head.

Eeewww! Yet another 850 head that was stored for decades uncovered outside with no carb.

I did a bit of googling and found this picture of the three angles

Shaped the stone to 30 degrees and made a cut

Next was some Dykem and 45 degrees

And finally 60 degrees and some more layout fluid to show where I am removing material

And finally all three angles after removing the dykem

I used a rough "general purpose" stone and I think for the good head I would step up to a finer finishing stone.

I am going to take this head to some more knowledgeable people than I to get their opinions on the viability of my homebrewed valve job and hardware. I am pretty convinced that I can do this. Hell I already have, but I think I might need to learn a bit more about the angles and their locations/widths.

OK OK I know that these days valve seats are cut with carbide and no longer ground to shape, but a neway carbide cutter itself costs several orders of magnitude more than my total engine rebuild. Yes I am sure that grinding is far inferior for many super awesome reasons but This has cost me about $25 so far and looks to be working.

Any comments on this? I am interested to hear opinions and constructive criticism/tips.

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