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Yes, the valves must absolutely be above their seat when the valve springs are not installed. In fact they should be above their seat by about the same spec that you found with the checking gage.

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Thanks Ross, good to know. Without measuring it seems like the valves are above the seat by a good amount more than what I gauged the stems at. But if the stems all spec'd out fine then I assume I'm still okay.

One other question, no prefilling the lifters with oil, correct?

I would not prefill them, assuming they are lubricated on assembly.

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They probably all still have kerosene left over in them. So clean all that out and wipe down with oil, then reassemble?

So I got a good start on getting the valves back in tonight. But I found about halfway through that the lifters should be totally dry before putting in the engine. The first few cylinders I had cleaned out the leftover kerosene out of the lifters, then wiped a bit of clean oil on the plunger body and assembled, then put them in the car. Turns out the manual advises to have the lifters totally dry:



So now my question is should I go ahead and finish the reassembly of the remaining valve, and assume that the lifters I oiled will be okay? Or should I remove the lifters I had oiled and redo them? I can't say I'm super excited about removing all those valves again. It's probably 8 lifters that would need to come out and get cleaned and dried.

I have always ignored that practice and install the lifters with the kerosene in them. As the viscosity is so low the lifter will not hold a valve open off its seat and will leak down just like on the tester. The remainder is very quickly expelled and replaced with engine oil upon startup.

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Good to know. Any concerns with oil being between the two lifter pieces? Not filling the body but just a film between the two pieces. With it being thicker than the kerosene I worry that it won't leak out or allow the lifter to pump up.

Finally got a chance to get the rest of the valves installed last night. Went together well except for on the last valve one of the keepers dropped straight into the oil pan. I had plugged all the holes with shop towels, but apparently one had come off at some point without me noticing. So Rusty McRustface came to the rescue with a replacement keeper. I'm not too concerned with a keeper sitting in the pan, but we may end up dropping it anyways to clean out any sludge.

I didn't end up removing the lifters I had oiled. I'm hoping that they pump up with oil quickly on startup, but we'll see.

Cleaned everything up and connected the battery to do a quick test. Nothing looks out of the ordinary to me as the engine turns.


Now the big question is how well did we do the valve job. I'm crossing my fingers that the valves seal well and that we have good compression.

Today was a day of victory.

Brother in law and I worked furiously last night and this morning to get his car back on the road. Here's what we did:
-Sandblasted all original head nuts and washers
-Cleaned head surface and block surface again (gasket scrapers and acetone)
-Installed two replacement head studs, sealed the threads (studs donated by Rusty McRustface)



-Coated new head gasket (Best Gaskets) on both sides with 6 layers of copper gasket spray. Recommendation from a long-time classic engine builder. Also a couple squirts of oil in each cylinder to help lube the cylinder and to capture/burn off any dust or crap that we didn't clean out. Another recommendation from the same builder.



-Installed head. Lightly oil on threads of head studs. 4 times through the tightening sequence to seat all the nuts, then 2 times through the sequence to torque spec (62 ft lbs)



-Gapped all the plugs and reinstalled, hooked up all the misc parts. Also new radiator hoses top and bottom. New temperature sender also. Ready to fire



Then we pushed it outside to fire it up and crossed our fingers. I have to say I was a bit nervous to see the results of all this work. It was a bit stubborn starting up because it hasn't run in many months but we got it. This video is about 2 minutes after initial start:


I'm happy to report that the lifters are dead silent. No time required for them to pump up with oil. The only sound that could be heard from the front of the car was the fan. We called it a night because it was after 11pm.

This morning was retorquing the head after the heat cycle last night, changing the oil, reinstalling the valve covers, road draft tube, and heat shield. Greased all the zerks, cleaned and refilled the oil bath air filter, reinstalled and aligned the hood, and a good wash. Checked the compression after sitting all night (engine fully cold) and here are the results:
1 - 125
2 - 125
3 - 125
4 - 125
5 - 122
6 - 124
7 - 115
8 - 125

Happy with those numbers as they are consistent. If the engine was warm they would probably be higher. And #8 is no longer a dead cylinder. The valves seem to be sealing well, which was one of my main concerns. So it looks like our valve and seat work was good.

We filled it up with gas and did a solid 15 mile drive from city driving to country roads at 55+ mph. Ran great, no overheating, no noise at all in the valve. All in all a good result that we are happy with. And I've learned a ton!

Great job!