Rebuilding a slant with beehive valve springs and I was trying to use umbrella type valve stem seals. Not working out too well. Do you have to use a different valve stem seal with these springs, or even no seals? It is so tight for the seals that it looks like they will be shredded by the inner spring as soon as it starts. I read about the umbrella style in Doug's book. Any ideas??? Thanks........Gary

I used 11/32 diameter valve stems with beehive springs and positive valve seals. With no clearance issues. I have not looked at an umbrella stem seal in a while but IIRC the outside diameter of the umbrella seal is larger than the OD of the valve guide. A positive valve seal will have about the same OD as the valve guide. If it looks like your beehive springs will clear the OD of the valve guide, the fix may be as simple as using positive valve seals.

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Doo Ron Ron and the Duke of Earl are friends of mine.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX8Nj8ABEI8

Had a machine shop look at my valve parts and he warned me about the aluminum flat valve spring retainers- that they could fail. Thoughts?

The aluminum beehive retainers I have wore at the keepers and almost pulled through the retainer.
Lucky it was a race car / engine and I started getting valve float at lower & lower RPM.
Pulled the engine apart and found the problem... before it "dropped a valve"
DD

Were these aluminum retainers on the original stock engines? Are people tossing them these days? My retainers look unworn, but I don't want an engine failure. My engine is in a Little Red Wagon style A100 pickup, has an 819 Oregon cam and 2bbl super six street setup. Am enjoying your book during this exercise. Thanks DD!

Aluminum retainers are not good for engines that are expected to be low maintenance. With the little Oregon 819 cam there's no reason to run AL retainers and an excellent reason to not run them (engine destruction at some indeterminate future date). They were not stock and neither were beehive valve springs. Slants came with conventional valve springs and steel retainers. Where did you get these parts?

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Joshua

They were on the craigslist engine I bought at the start of the year ($75). Figured I had never been in the block in the five years I have had the truck, so I would start on a backup. Truck is my daily driver. Had a local machinist go through the block, and did some porting on the heads. Do you think I should ditch the beehive springs??

It depends on the valves you have in the head.
it can be hard to find beehive retainers that fit 3/8 valve stems.
DD