Almost got my motor back...

[c-rad]

I went to pick my motor up yesterday and when I got there, I got some semi-bad news. He ended up breaking off one of the oil squirters! It's no big deal as he is getting me a new one. Other than that though, everything looked good. -ALMOST. He resurfaced the head, but there is a little bit of corrosion around one of the coolant passages. He said I have a couple of options. Option 1 is to get a headgasket and see where the seal goes in relation to that passage and hope it seals outside the corroded area. Option 2 is to TIG weld the area and then surface it again. Option 3 is to get another head.

Here is the area in question...

I would really hate NOT to use this head as everything else about it is great. What do you guys think?

[boost_boy]

I went to pick my motor up yesterday and when I got there, I got some semi-bad news. He ended up breaking off one of the oil squirters! It's no big deal as he is getting me a new one. Other than that though, everything looked good. -ALMOST. He resurfaced the head, but there is a little bit of corrosion around one of the coolant passages. He said I have a couple of options. Option 1 is to get a headgasket and see where the seal goes in relation to that passage and hope it seals outside the corroded area. Option 2 is to TIG weld the area and then surface it again. Option 3 is to get another head.

Here is the area in question... Just use copper spray on your new headgasket and it will be just fine. If he TIGs it and resurfaces it, you are going to gain a few more #s in compression readings. Also, you will be running out of times you can resurface this head.

Dee

I would really hate NOT to use this head as everything else about it is great. What do you guys think?

[c-rad]

Yeah, he only took .005 off the head so I should be fine with a stock thickness gasket as of now. I talked to him again, and he said it wouldnt have to be resurfaced again. He said he could fill it in and have it ground down and then use the spray like you suggested. There is also a master machinist here in town I was going to take it to to get his opinion. He was a machinist for NASCAR for 28 years so he knows his stuff.

EDIT: By the way, I hate how the fuel injectors only spray into one port on the intake ports. The ones that do NOT get any fuel spray are so nasty!

[float_6969]

SeaFoam is your friend, my friend...

[c-rad]

SeaFoam is your friend, my friend...

Seafoam eh? You really think that stuff is up to the task?

[fanta]

Seafoam eh? You really think that stuff is up to the task?

If those butterflies are open, Seafoam will get rid of it all

[c-rad]

If those butterflies are open, Seafoam will get rid of it all

Just spray it in the intake ports and then what?

[c-rad]

I am more concerned about the head corrosion than the intake ports being dirty. The big area is about 1-1.5mm deep. I think it's going to have to be welded. Should the heat from the TIG welder be of concern?
Modified by c-rad at 10:32 PM 5/28/2005

[777aaron]

I work in a machine shop where we deal with a bunch of stuff like this,we build NHRA superstock engines and we have to use stock castings (which are usally 30+ years old) and to get max. compression we usally cut the heads WAY down,like 0.100 thousandths or more.Well as you can imagine you get into quite a bit of corosion with all this mess.Sometimes we TIG a head,but its a real process and you can warp them very easily even if you know what you are doing,and we usally only like to do this when the corosion reveals itself before we are finished milling,so that we can have at least 10 to 20 thousandths for a clean up cut.And other times we just use devcon strong steel (a j.b. weld kind of product except much better) and file down the excess till its smooth with the head.You can also use silicone if this is not in an area too close to the combustion chamber and you will be using a fel-pro blue type gasket which is very good at sealing up leaks like this one,but not the best option for a turbo engine.What you should probabaly do is put some dykem blue,its a machinest dye,on the head where you think the cylinder will seal and bolt the head on the block with 2 bolts then turn the block upside down and scribe a line where the cylinder will seal.This will give you a point to work from,and if you are a quater inch or more away you should probably be ok with devcon on a metal head gasket,and silicone on a fel-pro blue type gasket.I hope maybe this helps a little and best of luck with the rest of your build up.

[777aaron]

Lookin at that pic a little more closely I think you will be fine even with silicone ,with copper coat on the gasket as boost boy mentioned,since it is on the other side of the water jacket away from the chamber.You can still do it with devcon if you want it to be "nice".

[float_6969]

I'm in aggeeance with 777aaron on this one. I'm actually using that copper spray on a stock headgasket that has to seal boost and higher compression and it hasn't complained as of yet. It's far enough away from the combustion chamber that I don't think that the heat will be much of a problem.

[float_6969]

As for the seafoam, just make sure and unplug the vac. line to the butterflys so that they open up, and then slowly spray it into a MANIFOLD port. I kinda fabbed something up for my seafoaming. I have an extra washer fluid bottle from my clip. So what I do is spray the seafoam into that and then hook the pump line up to a vac. line on the manifold and put power to the pump so that it sprays it in. Other than that, I just follow the directions on the bottle.

[c-rad]

Lookin at that pic a little more closely I think you will be fine even with silicone ,with copper coat on the gasket as boost boy mentioned,since it is on the other side of the water jacket away from the chamber.You can still do it with devcon if you want it to be "nice".

Is this the devcon stuff you're talking about?http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISA...WA:IT

Looks like a standard JB Weld-type epoxy.

[float_6969]

Thats the stuff. It's like JB weld, but waaaayy cooler.

[777aaron]

Yes,that should work just fine.Its not exactly what we use but we have used 4 or 5 different kinds of their products and never had trouble with any of them.Here is a link if you want to get specific,I looked for a couple miniutes but could'nt find the stuff we use,they make hundreds of products http://www.devcon.com/

[c-rad]

Yes,that should work just fine.Its not exactly what we use but we have used 4 or 5 different kinds of their products and never had trouble with any of them.Here is a link if you want to get specific,I looked for a couple miniutes but could'nt find the stuff we use,they make hundreds of products http://www.devcon.com/

Hmm..... what to do, what to do.... I am now stuck between sticking a little silicone in there or the epoxy. I'll get it figured out one way or another.

[boost_boy]

Hmm..... what to do, what to do.... I am now stuck between sticking a little silicone in there or the epoxy. I'll get it figured out one way or another.

You really don't have much of a problem. I didn't tell you this before, but I've had 2 heads that look similar to yours and I just kept going.

Dee

[c-rad]

You really don't have much of a problem. I didn't tell you this before, but I've had 2 heads that look similar to yours and I just kept going.

Dee

LOL, that makes me feel better. I just want everything as perfect as possible. Last thing I want is to have it running great for a week and then have coolant leaking out the back of the head. I guess with some copper spray, a fresh gasket, and some non-stretching ARP studs, I should be alright. Only time will tell, right?

[float_6969]

You'll be fine, don't worry about it buddy.

[777aaron]

I agree with everyone else,I think you'll be fine even if you just use silicone and copper coat.Or you can still use the devcon and the copper coat if you want to play around for an hour or so