just renewing my head gasket, when the head was off the valve guides seemed a bit worn so had them replaced, upon lapping the valves back in they seemed to be not seating right so went for advice off a proffesional and they suggested having the valve seats recut which they done for me. is this normally the case after having new guides replaced.

 

When you've replaced the guides you do usually have the seats recut for a couple of reasons; Firstly if your old guides were excessively worn the seats will have been worn too (not by a lot but it is measurable) because of the stem moving about in the guide. Secondly the chances of the new guide holding the valve in exactly the same position as the old guide is virtually nil and the valve won't seat correctly as it's off centre relative to the seat.

 

a few pics of the head, the inlet side of the head squish looks ok but the exhaust side squish looks very close. the head gasket lasted 8 years and it as done 25k miles since it was done.