Thread: Head rebuild

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"..... I just want practice building heads....."

If you want to use them to practice porting and polishing, knock yourself out.

What Pat and Jerry are getting at is that to properly “build” a set of heads takes a lot than what an average person has in his home shop, meaning that at some point a trip to a machine shop is going to be necessary.

The first step the process will be to clean the heads and check for cracks, make sure they aren’t warped, see how bad the seats are recessed, check the valves to see if they are reusable etc. Do you know what you’re looking for when checking heads? We are talking measurement in the thousands of an inch and unless you have the equipment and more importantly the knowledge to know what you’re looking at even this step should be done by a professional. Cracks are a good example, we're not talking something you can throw a cat thru, but rather something that will that is no wider than a human hair. Is there enough margin left on the valve head and are the stems suitable for reuse? Have the seats been recessed to the point where new seats are required?

Chances are when they are cleaned and checked, you going to find as Pat and Jerry are saying, that to properly rebuilt the heads it will take machine work that you will have to farm out and you will be into the heads for more than you will ever get out of them. They will be fine for practicing you’re porting and polishing skills, but as far as even breaking even after they have been properly rebuilt, you’ve got a set of door stops.