I love cheap tools sometimes. My own personal collection is a mixture of top name brands and some of the cheapest shit you can find that actually works. Surprisingly sometimes the cheap stuff is better than the expensive stuff in some applications. It doesn’t happen often but occasionally it does. Most of the time you get what you pay for though and here in a tale of 2 valve spring compressors I’m going to show you a great example of this principle in action. As I started to tear down the head for the CM400 I am overhauling I realized that none of the valve spring compressors that I already own would work, 2 or 3 of them were for side valve engines, one was your typical auto parts store V8 compressor & the last one is a homemade thing especially made to work on old Honda 50-200cc dirtbike engines. Of course none of them would work, what I needed was one of the large C-clamp style tools with multiple adapters like all the shops that I used to work at had. So I came inside, fired up the computer and went shopping.

Of course I did not start out looking for the cheap stuff, my first search was for a genuine Motion Pro Valve Spring Compressor
but it is a bit pricey at around 100 bucks or so not including the Motion Pro Adapter and Bore Protector Set That being said if you got the money to throw around or if you are running a full time professional shop it is the best one to get.

Being in an experimental state of mind (okay that’s bullshit I am just a cheap bastard sometimes) I decided to try out this one that is all over ebay & Amazon for around $30 dollars shipped. It came in a nice molded plastic box with plenty of adapters for different size valve springs.

…

Unfortunately the cheap thin wall tubing that it was made of almost immediately began to flex and fail without budging the valve spring in the slightest. All of the compressors of this style & price range had very mixed reviews on the various merchant websites where they are sold apparently they work on some engines with weaker springs but on this head it did not work at all and was in fact a complete & total failure.

Have your balls ever fallen out?

To add insult to injury one of the balls that retains the adapters to the tools popped out of its socket

As you can see here this Stark valve spring compressor is now permanently bent and no longer fits back into it’s slot in the case. Back for a refund it went!

Enter the $46 OTC 4572 Large Valve Spring Compressor in it’s no frills cardboard box. Fancy blow molded plastic cases are nice, but really don’t make much difference if the tools inside don’t work. In this case the manufacturer decided to save money on the packaging and not the tool.

When I opened up the box there was a surprisingly heavy well made tool inside. It was very similar in style, metal thickness, and finish to the more expensive tools I have used in the past at various shops where I have worked. There were two other cost cutting measures one being that it only comes with two adapters for different size springs and that it only had a cup style tip for the clamping screw instead of including an interchangeable ball style tip, which actually works for better in most valve spring removal applications Below it is laid out with the rest of the tools that I normally use when it’s time to lap a set of valves.

Here is a shot of it in place ready to compress a valve spring. At this time I’d like to point out that you do NOT compress the valve springs by pushing on the large handle with the rubber hand grip. To get your initial setup pull the handle open to get the tool in place around the head and then push it closed. Then you adjust the adapter and the clamping screw until the tool is in the correct place. Then you turn the t-handle on the clamping screw to compress and release the springs. To move on to the next valve spring, first release the tension on the spring by retracting the clamping screw, and next you release the handle, move the tool to the next valve, close the handle, and once again use the clamping screw to compress the spring.

Repeat as needed until you have removed & reinstalled all of the valves as needed.

Below you can see a fully compressed valve spring with the valve keepers removed.

The bottom line? The OTC 4572 Large Valve Spring Compressor is worth the money. It may lack a full range of spring adapters and accessories, but if you don’t need all of those things this is a solid well made tool that will get the job done.