You are gonna upset the spider when you take those valves out and wire brush them .....

I'd lap them back in when you are done cleaning them.

Who said anything about taking them out ?
What do we think ? They look good to me, kinda white'ish, not much carbon,.....but kinda hard to tell really.

Lappin ?? You ain't never heard of Lappin valves in w/ valve grinding compound ?? Where ya been ?

Ohhhhhh, lapping is redoing the valve seat, never heard it called that before. I will probably remove the valves just to be sure there are no valve leaks. I had the top end off about 1000 miles ago and I did not pull the valves but they looked pretty bad from the underside.

With out disassembling the head & a thorough cleaning there is not a lot you can tell. Try working them back & forth & side to side for a crude check of the guides. Turn head upside down & fill with liquid (I like alcohol) & watch for leakage out the ports.

Once you take it apart you can tell a lot more by looking at the valve seats & faces, & check the stems for wear.

A real valve job includes refacing or replacing the valves & grinding (refacing) the seats. Checking the guides for wear & replacing if needed. Not something your average guy can do.

If they're not to bad you can hand lap them & it will work just fine.