First off I can not for the life of me get my PIP to work. I have tried everything found search. So if someone can pull these photos and upload them for posterity that would be awesome.

This seems daunting but it really is not to bad. There is one thing you want to avoid at all costs. DO NOT drop a valve down into your cylinder. If you do you will be looking for the head gasket changing thread.
I started with my tiny 3 gallon 100 PSI $40 Harbor Freight special air compressor. I think it would do the job but I was a little nervous when the first valve I came to would not release from the spring. Instead I just opened the valve with the spring tool. This was remedied by getting my buddies larger compressor and tapping the top of the valve with a hammer before compressing each spring.

First open your deck lid and look at your pretty iron duke.



Remove your air cleaner, tear it all down to the throttle body. I usually stuff the intake hose under the vent on the drivers side. Now you can see your EGR valve, and valve cover. Also unplug your spark plugs and disconnect the wires from the clips attached to the valve cover.


To get that last valve cover bolt out you need to remove the EGR valve. Make sure you get a gasket for it. Also do not snap the hard vac line that goes to said EGR valve like I did. Here you can see I worked around and pulled the bolt under the EGR last. I though I could get under it to remove that bolt but no dice.



Next take the bolts out of the valve cover and remove it. I work my way around like you would putting a tire on. Loosen one bolt then loosen the bolt directly across from it. Valve cover like to leak and I don't want to warp or distort it in any way.


Next on cylinder 1 pull the spark plug. In the spark plug hole screw in the length of hose with the air quick disconnect that comes with your compression testing kit. I got mine at Harbor Freight for $29. The Harbor Freight kit puts the shrader valve in the hose for the gauge and not in each screw in adaptor you get with the kit. I have seen them with the shrader valve in the adaptor hose if that is the case just remove it. Then pull the rocker arm bolts out and remove the rocker arms and push rods. Keep the push rods with the rocker they came out with.


I also found this odd hole (between the un-rockered valve and the rockered valve).....the was one that looked exactly the same on the other side of the head. Weird looking.


Take your valve spring compressor tool and bolt it in with the rocker bolt, hook up your air hose and turn on your air compressor. Let the air pressure stabilize. Mine was at 70 PSI through the whole process.



Using the tool compress the valve down and pull out the little wedge shaped keepers. If you just open the valve and the spring is not releasing from the stem just tap it with a hammer and it should knock them loose.

Keepers are tiny don't loose them.


Now you can pull your umbrella seal off. This is an 88 it has no o-rings toward the top of the stem. If you have an older duke than 88 you might need to get some o-rings with your umbrella seals.



Pull off the old one and pop on a new one. Do not push too much. They should just slide on. If you push too much you risk unsealing the valve and releasing all of that air holding it up. Then you will be doing a head gasket too.


Reverse these steps to put it all back. Be careful with putting the keepers back. It can be tricky getting them on the stem again and if not seated properly could shoot out. Which is not good for the eyes and will earn you a drive to the parts store to get more keepers. Just work two valves at a time and work down to each cylinder compressing each cylinder with air as you go to keep those valves from falling into the cylinder.

That is all feel free to add pointers if you wish.

Curly

[This message has been edited by Curlrup (edited 01-15-2012).]

Cool write up, thanks! Have you noticed any difference, if you have gotten a chance to drive it yet?

Nope not yet. I figured there was no sense in seeing if it still smoked in the dark. I will see tomorrow. I'm not too encouraged. The seals that came off looked really good.

Oh. Well I was wondering if I should do this on my 4.9 as well since it's doing the exact same thing yours is. But If I have to take the heads off I'm screwed. The head bolts loooove to pull the threads out of the aluminum block.

I'll keep you posted on the results.

Aaaannnnnnddddd....still smokes. Crap. Oh well I tried and made a nice write up for others. For the cost and how easy it was to do. I would say give it a shot. Your only out about $10 in seals.

Smoking from leaky valve seals only happens at first start-up, and then clears up quickly. It's a lot more common on V6 Fieros than on dukes. If you have constant smoke, it's something else -- likely rings.

Easier and more positive is to push about 5 or 10 feet of closeline rope into the spark plug hole and then turn the piston up to hold the valves in place, (you do need to start on the compression stroke) then they cannot fall into the cylinder. When you are done just back the piston down some and pull out the rope. Larry

quote Originally posted by TopNotch: Smoking from leaky valve seals only happens at first start-up, and then clears up quickly. It's a lot more common on V6 Fieros than on dukes. If you have constant smoke, it's something else -- likely rings.

Smokes like mad if I am idling at a light and then hit the gas. Any other time I got nothing. Very strange. Did a compression test and everything checked out. Must be rings with good compression. That is all I can think of. All of my plugs look good except for cylinder 2. It's not terrible but seems to have a small amount of gunk on it. Oh well like I said was cheap to do and I got to do a write up on it so no real loss there. Looks like I need to do some rings.

It's an Iron Duke, it will always smoke and leak oil. Lol.

Sorry to hear it didn't work, that's a disappointment for sure. But it's honestly if it's the rings there is a very good chance it will need to be bored out, and if that's the case, it's not worth doing on a duke.

Yep. I'm just going to drive it until it poops then replace it. I have a black 88 with a duke waiting for some love so I am going to move on to that one do some work on it, swap the trans for a 5 speed and drive it until it poops then put some thing new in. The black 88 duke runs and drives great, the shredded interior and horrible paint is what need s to be addressed more than anything. I see my Fieros as a long term project. Drive em till they poop then replace the motor maybe some fresh paint and so on. I kind of like keeping a Fiero with a stock Duke in it. Keeps things historic.

quote Originally posted by Curlrup: Aaaannnnnnddddd....still smokes. Crap. Oh well I tried and made a nice write up for others.

Yes, too bad it still smokes, but excellent write-up nevertheless.

I gave you a positive rating for your efforts. I would've given you two positive ratings if the write-up was for an '84 duke.

Burns oil or running rich?

quote Originally posted by mattwa: It's an Iron Duke, it will always smoke and leak oil. Lol.

My duke doesn't smoke or leak. Even before I rebuilt it a 200,000 miles, it didn't smoke or leak. But it did mess up it's timing gear.

quote Originally posted by jaskispyder: Burns oil or running rich?

Burns oil. It eats a quart every 500 to 1000 miles depending on how it is driven. Kind of sucks.

quote Originally posted by Curlrup: Burns oil. It eats a quart every 500 to 1000 miles depending on how it is driven. Kind of sucks.

Yeah I would say the rings are bad if you are losing that much oil.

I was more or less joking. Both of the dukes I had leaked oil, one leaked so bad, It leaked out 3 quarts in 100 miles.

That's not a leak... that's a hole.

quote mattwa:It's an Iron Duke, it will always smoke and leak oil. Lol. ...

From taking True of False exams in school most of us know that statements with always in them are False.

My reman 2.5 w/ 30K miles on it doesn't burn oil.

quote Originally posted by Curlrup: I also found this odd hole (between the un-rockered valve and the rockered valve).....the was one that looked exactly the same on the other side of the head. Weird looking.

So is this hole supposed to be in there? There another on the other side. Just looked like a void from casting. Very irregular in shape.

2.5L was an economy (low cost) engine, so GM didn't spend $$ on dressing up hidden (from the user's point of view) areas.

I don't complain over extra holes.

But yea, that 88 duke leaked reallly bad. Timing cover/oil pan junction. The good news is it kept that side of the cradle completely rust free for me. The other side had rust holes.

Going to try this on my 88 today or tomorrow. I'm afraid I'm in the same boat though. It smokes and burns about a quart every 500 miles. I do drive it a lot and it's reliable, just wish it didn't smoke and eat oil. My compression test also turned out really well. Never seen an engine pass compression test and leak oil past the rings... but that may be the case.

A clogged cat can cause a lot of blowback. The exhaust will find the path of least resistance. You still have the original cat convertor?

Curlrup I did an overhaul on my 86 Duke in 2008 when you did the write up about the ball joints. Mine always smoked on first start up, then stopped. Used to embarrass the sheets out of me. Let it sit for an hour, and got some smoke again.

I know I installed the seals correctly. Just a Duke I think.
-Joe

[This message has been edited by josef644 (edited 02-24-2012).]

My 88 Duke uses no oil at all. 117k miles on it.
No smoke on start up either.

Steve

A compression test tells you more about the compression rings than the oil control rings.

quote Originally posted by Curlrup: So is this hole supposed to be in there? There another on the other side. Just looked like a void from casting. Very irregular in shape.

My head has the same kind of holes... I think it's normal. I think...