valve job question

[Stowe, Ted-SEA]

question for the group mind.

In my younger days when doing valve jobs for customers cars, I would clean
off the carbon that was on top of the cylinders. I used to rotate the engine
around and bring the pistons up to tdc and whirl away with a drill bit
mounted wire brush.


nowadays I wonder if all it did was make the piston top pretty and introduce
lots of debris into the engine especially the cylinder walls, creating years
of wear in minutes.

I'm doing a valve job on my Chevy v8, and I don't want to incur any more
wear on the cylinder walls nor do I really want to spin the motor around as
I want to drop the distributor right back in where I pulled it.

the engine was leaking oil past the guides and has a uniform amount of build
up on top of the pistons. 

should I

leave it alone, ?

spray some chemical thing on the top and leave it then wipe it all away ,
then most likely leave some lubricant in the cylinders.

or do something else ?



thanks, Ted Stowe