Cutting down valves

pittsburghracer said

while restocking new and used valves I saved a box full of valves that were worn out. Has anyone ever used their lathe to say cut down a worn out 2.08 valve and cut it down to a usable 2.05 or a 2.05 to a 2.02 valve. Just thinking it wouldn’t be that hard to do and I hate scraping something still usable.

Click to expand...

Easy peesey.

Take a cast iron valve guide and cut a slit in it with a hack saw or similar tool along its length.

Use that to grab the valve. Slide it in the Chuck and use as rigid tooling as you have and use a tool bit (I love indexable carbide!!!) for stainless.

I never trust the dials on any lathe. I set up an mag base dial indicator on the cross slide and find my zero by just touching off of the valve.

Then I take off whatever I need. Say a 2.100 to 2.05 is .050 (I love simple math cuz I ain't too bright) and turn the valve until I take my .050 and then zero the indicator again. Now it's just swapping valves, Turing to zero and repeating.

I have some 2.100 and 1.600 5/16 stem valves out there I may turn to 2.05 and 1.50 and use them in my W2 junk build.

BTW...I know you get the procedure but I wanted to lay it out for guys who may not know how to do it quick and easy.