OK

Been dismantling heads to decoke.

Practised first on my "scrap head", either I have a rubbish spring compressor or the 2cv needs something slightly different but after a fight I took apart all 3 heads.

The 2 that came off the car where fitted with single springs on inlet and exhaust, and one of the spring retainers, (the bottom one) was missing. On my "new" head, both valves had double springs........

Sooooo......what is right, and can I mix and match? (car is '87)

The one with double valve springs will be the oldest, possibly early 70s.
Check the castings, as the later ( Portuguese?) engines had 'Alumalsa' moulded into the part which faces the barrel.
Keep all of its parts together, as I 'think' they're different from later versions.

Missing lower spring collar? Blame the last man in there...

When dealing with valve springs, get some pressure on with the compressor then give the part which is bearing on the spring retainer a tap with a hammer.
That's usually enough to break the 'stiction'.

Ken

I think the double springs were around until about 1976? My 75 2cv has them anyway. I'm not sure what the point of them was though?

Wasn't so much that they stuck, just that the finger was fouling on the casing before the springs were compressed enough....I think I need an extension on thefinger to give more depth..

All bets on the age of the head are off if the "spare head " came from someones bucket of "dead racer bits for recycling" doh!

if it was my head Gerry, put all the bits in a bag and ill have them back

Put all the single spring bits stripped off the car into a box and we'll build a matched pair ill bring engine build boxes over and we can replace any missing bits.

when dismantling valves i was taught to stand the head on a bench with a block directly under the valve , tubular drift over the valve stem so it bears on the spring cap and a sharp tap it sort of "clicks" and the next blow is a bouncy one - that's the collets free. The wheel chock is a perfect fit in the heads

you need a valve spring compressor for "deep" heads or to borrow one

what do the oil feed pipes look like any signs of rusting and pitting? if so ill bring a set over too while we are at this stage of strip down.

S

The outer spring in the factory produced double arrangement is lighter than that which is used on its own, plus the small inner spring is wound in the opposite direction.
The result was that with comparable total spring pressure to the single spring setup, any tendency for valve float or bounce at high rpm was controlled better.
Then the accountants stepped in...

Ken