Just got back from a wonderful drive to San Diego (border to border, live in Bellingham WA). Anyways, I guess I could consider myself lucky that I didn't get stranded down there. Here's the story:

Yesterday when I was dropping my little sister off at swimming practice, my CEL came on in the parking lot (sitting at idle). Took it to the autozone and pulled a cylinder 2 misfire code. I cleared the code and drove it around 40-ish miles without it coming on. However in the back of my mind, I recall Billman's infamous discovery on those weak AP1 valve retainers. 2 years ago when I bought the car I bought all the AP2 equivalents to do the intake side.... I just never got around to doing it. After that misfire code, I decided to pull the valve cover and get out my handy tiny mirror thingy and have a looksie. Here are a few pictures - I did my best by myself to hold a flashlight, camera, and light all at the same time in very cramped space. Hence these aren't the best pictures. The photo I took is on the intake side on the #3 cylinder. The #2 cylinder also had slightly sunk ones, but from what I can tell with this one, it looks like it's about ready to drop? I could barely see any of the retainer clips when looking at it.

The good news I guess is that the car is running fine - even after the misfire it never came back on and it's not making any funny sounds or running rough.

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Let me know your thoughts - I guess what I'm asking is for a confirmation that what I'm looking at is a sunk retainer about ready to drop and blow the engine. It was very hard even for me to get in there to see the things. I'm not sure if my CEL is related to it at all as the #3 cylinder was the worse one and the CEL was for a cylinder #2 misfire.

Thanks gang!

 

Looks sunk but your pics are not showing the retainer inner wall.

 

My thoughts? You knew about this and two years ago bought parts but did nothing?

I don't think you want my honest thoughts. Get it fixed and keep driving...

 

Okay okay okay... haha. I bought them initially out of fear and then said "well, I don't feel like going to the effort" and then stuck them in my office drawer.

At least I caught it before it was too late! I'm guessing that my misfire isn't related to the valve retainers anyways, so I'll have that to fix as well I suppose.

Thanks guys.

 

So today I put on my try hard helmet, meditated a bit, contemplated whether or not to pay someone to do it, and then started in...

After removing the cams, one by one I flipped up each rocker arm. #1 - looking good! 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, whoa! Maybe I won't have to do this...

Then comes along #7....

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After shedding a tear or two, I decided I better continue. It looks like this retainer was almost completely failed? Does God himself deserve a big "THANK YOU!" ?

It took me over two hours to figure out how to get those stupid clips inside the ring on the first one, all while praying the air compressor would keep up (wasn't really an issue, just a paranoia of mine). I'm going to try and finish up tomorrow now that I learned some tricks to doing it.

I attached a picture below of the first one I got in - does it look like I did it right? The gap seemed a bit more then the old ones, but maybe that's just how the AP2 ones are?

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Anyways, thanks again Mr. Billman and everyone else!

 

Wow that #7 was on its way out. Good job saving your motor!

 

Your AP2 retainer install is good, that's how they sit.


The 7th one back has ALWAYS been the worst one in 95% or better of all the jobs I've done.

 

The shiny circumference of the retainer is a sign of a sunken valve, are any of your cam lobes etched by the worn metal that flings off the retainer ?

 

Oh man JFUSION, you're gonna' make this kids head explode. Even if he's wearing his try hard helmet.

 

I'm sorry, I think

After going back and looking at one of the pics I think I found the answer to my earlier question