Sticking valves

[Bob Kneale]

The only sticking valve I experienced was on my wedding day,(46 years ago), when my best man and I spent the morning trying everything short of removing the head to try and find the cause of the extremely rough running. If we'd only removed the head first we might have found the cause in time. The valve was sticking open as a result of a cracked tappet block possibly the result of over tightening the locknut during tappet setting in the long distant past. Needless to say I'm extra careful about tappet locknuts as a result. We had to go on honeymoon in a Mk1 HA Vauxhall Viva!
Fortunately I'd arranged the other wedding transport with the local undertaker (in the event, more reliable).......

[jpsmit]

The only sticking valve I experienced was on my wedding day,

Not going to lie, I read this sentence and thought the post was going in a completely different direction. 

[Ivor Hawkins]

Would you believe it? Had the motor to bits four times now over the past few weeks, reamed all the guides, valves running with plenty of clearance, sorted the fuelling problem out this morning, went for a lovely drive, got home, left the car for a couple of hours, started it up again clack, clack, clack....

After a couple of minutes warm up the valves freed up and the car went well.

I’ve been running the car on Premium E5 and noticed that there were all sorts of gummy deposits around the inlet valves...do you think a change to cheap petrol may help?

I’m going to drain the oil and switch to Classic 20/50 instead of straight 30 as well.

[Dave Mann]

Back in 1979 I was sent to Fiji to resolve all sorts of problems with a new installation of two 14000 BHP engines which took nearly two years. One of the lesser problems was sticking exhaust valves and after a while we knew which was were liable to stick, the cause being excessive valve/guide clearance.