Hahah. Yeah I cut my timing belt with a pair of tin snips. Took me literally 30 min at most to get the head off. As for the white valves, did it look more like a white bulid up? Or was the metal itself a white color? If its a bulid up, thats raw unburnt fuel. I had it so bad it was built up in clumps like barnacles growing on the bottom of a boat.