Making the best of burnt valves
By PG Jonker
Shortly after acquiring my brand new second hand Mazda Magnum DC I had to have a burnt valve repaired at 120 000km’s. It is on the old Essex 3-liter engine that mutated into a 3.4 litre engine for service in these bakkies.
Rather unhappy with this turn of events I made enquiries to find out more about this. Those in the know were reluctant to speak, but from my enquiries I could gather that the burning of the #3 valve was a known problem on these engines. I was also told that the problem became known to Ford’s engineers, and that they had it fixed. As a subtle indicator to those in the know, the tappet covers of the fixed models were made silver instead of the standard black that I had on my bakkie.
[By the way, I would love to hear from some of you techo-fundis out there if anyone has any knowledge about this problem.]
Well, there is not much to do about this but to repair the valve, and hoping for the best. My thinking was that I would just factor into my motoring budget to have a burnt #3 valve repaired every 120 000km. This problem has caused me to come to an arrangement with Theuns, my mechanic, to start every service with a pressure test to check the valves.
Much to my dismay I got a call from Theuns on the day that the bakkie went in for its 180 000 km’s service. There is again a burnt valve. To add insult to injury it turned out to be the #1 valve this time. Now this is a bit of a problem. I could convince myself that it is OK to repair a #3 valve every 120 000 (or even every 60 000km’s), but if the problem is not confined to one specific cylinder, it means that I have 12 valves that could randomly get burnt. Eisj!
Once again I tried to console myself that some of my friends on some well known brands pay for each service what it cost me every time I had to have a valve repaired. I had the valve duly repaired. This time I hope that the engine rebuilders would have opted for the hardened valve seats that should alleviate the problem of the burning valves, I am told.
I have, though, decided to make the best of the 12 valves that were replaced with the last reparation (which was 75 000km’s ago, I might add). These 12 valves now have a special place in my camping armaments. I use them to nail my groundsheets to the ground. And I can’t tell you how much pleasure it gives me to hammer away on especially the burnt valve every time I go camping!
PGJ