Cracked Head

[born2drivea55]

I pulled the heads off of my motor tonight and found a crack between the intake and exhaust valve seats. They're 1147 heads so I'm hoping that it can be repaired. Does anyone know if it is possible to fix? If so who is capable of doing the job? Also had a new valve put in where its cracked and the seats were reground.

 

[Tom Kochtanek]

Fixing cracks

A good machine shop where they do repair work would be a good first stop. Generally they need to inspect the crack, then give you an opinion. Some shops do not understand the value of certain heads, and they'll say "just get another one" like it's an easy thing to do... Other shops can fix anything, maybe even back it up.

Given enough dollars, anything can be accomplished (OK, a lot of dollars AND a lot of time!).

The shop I frequent does not like to weld these cracks up, but then they deal mostly in SBC and BBC builds, and many of those heads can be more easily had...

Good luck!

TomK

P.S. I had a pair of early 1958 heads checked and one turned out cracked, so I decided not to attempt a repair. The value of those heads (to me) wasn't enough to warrant the cost of a possible repair.

 

[oldskydog]

A good shop that specializes in welding cast iron (we have one here in PHX) can handle that easily.:

 

[58 Apache]

hi I am new dut one of the best ways is called stiching. dodge diesel engines crack all the time. a friend had his engine fixed without pulling the engine. one of their sites show a fix to your same crack. i will dic up info and post for you. check out www.rf.com it is a repair service whose web page has a complete start to finish with pictures

 

[k9hotrodder409]

Welcome to the site Apache !!

 

[Nuts]

That webpage is for a Cell Phone Service ????

Bill

 

[ratt409]

Iv had buick heads welded a couple of times with no problems at columbus col weld in ohio not cheap 600.00 but worth it to me as they were ported big. Hope this helps. Greg

 

[gearhead409]

I have had a number of 690-583 heads repaired at Columbus col weld, when I get the head back it's completely machined and ready for assembley. I had one 583 head with the combustion chamber completely broken out of it ( engine dropped a valve) I thought it was junk but they repaired it and it looked like new.