Valve spring micrometer

Like a slant?That's about .080-120 thick.
Some heads, like truck 318 heads, without longer valves or ...... you cant get a real spring in there. The passenger car heads seemed to have more room, then again a lot of machinists would just put the valve job down some.
Retainers are 150 bucks, but I know you meant what I said earlier with pop up locks.
But its really not a 'big wow' to cut .020 off the spring seat... that's how I know how thick the slants are

Yeah, it's unfortunate that the only way to know for sure is to hit water. lol