Life of Valve guides
 

I am in the process of rebuilding an M103 300E engine and I am not sure whether or not I need new valve guides. There seems to be a little play between the valve and the valve guide but I do not know if it is too much. The engine had 100K miles on it. Can anyone help me out here?

A little bit of wiggle is normal. Just put seals in it.

If your building it, replace the guides. 103 guides last 100 to 150k miles. I had one set gone at 85k.



Joe

I would do them just because the 103s have a lot of swipe [side] force compared to engs like the 104s.
So they are just more prone to wear by valve train design....

Thankyou everyone for your help! I will be replacing them just to have a good solid engine.

This decision would be best left to a competent machinist. You have to have the valves ground and the head surfaced anyway. My 103 had 240,000 mi. and all mine were worn out and the shop replaced them.