OK... so it has been donkeys years since i last posted... A lot has been going on since Fri Sep 14, 2012 8:46 am (my last post). lets see in a nut shell... New job, new house, new Baby Boy!!!! and new parts.
So for the last 2 years I have been saving up and getting parts as I have cash. I finally have all that I need to rebuild my motor, or so I thought. a quick check list: new valves, cam, followers, gasket set, all bearings, barrels and pistons. Reconditioned: heads, con rods.
After digging through a lot of scrap motors I managed to find a matching set of heads. one from my original motor and the other in a junk motor a bought. I took the plunge and re-coned the heads. My oe head had a blow through hole in one of the Exhaust ports and the (scrap) head had some issues with dropped valve seats. after many hours working in the engineers (he let me do the work and didn't charge me for the use of the equipment. we managed to weld up the hole and sort all the other bits out. so yesterday I start replacing some missing studs and seating the valves. then I see it...
A nice big crack from seat to port stud
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
so here are my options.
#1 try weld the crack (cheapest but not to shore if I am willing to risk all my new parts and time and money on a head that is clearly very fatigued)
#2 try find a good second hand replacement locally and fork out to have that refurbished and risk spending money on a head that could tern up more gremlins.
#3 buy brand new heads from the UK or USA (Not the cheapest... not OE parts but peace of mind that the parts are new...)
so here are the questions... I'm leaning to option 3, and after chatting to my Bank manager (read wife) she is keen for that as well. does any one know of brands to stay away from or can recommend a good brand that I can look into?
Heaps of thanks in advance
Regards
Stuart
any thing easy probably isn't worth doing.