Hi, Been stripping down the engine today (1600tp) the heads have cracks in, one more than the other. First head has cracks from the spark plug hole to the inlet/outlet valves. The second head has a small crack between the inlet and outlet valve. Are these for the bin or can the be salvaged somehow? Also if for the bin? Which replacement heads should I buy? Hoping to build a strong 1600tp with 36 dells. Any info much appreciated. Cheers Will
Keep them for the day that replacing the valve guides, and tig welding and grinding them will be cost-effective. Buy another set of Auto Linea from VWH or similar. I bought 'the VW heads' and these turned out to be Auto Linea in special expensive VW logo'd boxes... . I also bought some new valves and then recycled the springs and rockers off the old heads. On the second attempt I got all the springs the right way up... Fit a temperature gauge then you know when the oil is hot, the heads will be wildly hotter . Havent cracked my new heads on my 1641 yet despite running at 60-70mph for hundreds of miles in France.
Bin fodder dude Ask @zed as to what's best for type 1 heads... I'm not on my laptop so I can't check what's current
They can be rescued by an expert welder - reason why I am keeping my old original VW ones, the original stuff is still superior to the new...... But then I do seem to hord old VW junk for the 'just in case one day....'
I'm going to make side table out of mine. clean it up and put a bit of glass over the valve cover. granted, it'll look sh1t but it will also drive the mrs spare
^this. Fixable, but probably at greater cost than getting new ones. Not unusual for them to crack - they lead a hard life. I bought a pair of Autolineas about five years ago and they're still going strong.
Cracked heads! Yes they can be welded, I did this to a batch of 10 in the late 80s. We were building 10 plus engines a week and in a busy week we would need 20-40 heads each week and we could not get that amount. To do them first the valve seats need to be removed then the heads shotblasted. The cracks are then chased back until there is no trace of them anymore. Then they are welded, And a lot of welding is needed to fill the hole that is now in the head. When finnished they are reshaped and the bores for the valve seats are recut and the seats replaced, the plug bores and threads are recut, the exhaust studs replaced and the head is then milled with a stepped cutter and the head is ready to go. I got a very good welder to do his bit and the rest I did. To do it and turn a profit on them you need to do a lot each week to be able to pay the wages of at least 3 people. My heads worked and never went wrong, that I knew of. After doing them new bare heads came back in abundance at £22 each! As for cracked heads, I have only seen 1 engine were the valve seat had moved and the engine was running on 3 cylinders. URO wanted cheap engines and the rep kept on and on about using old heads. So I built some, I built dozens and dozens more. They had the same spec bottom end that I still build today but a used piston was fitted to number 3 cylinder and the cracked heads had Wurth plug inserts fitted. Only heads with tiny cracks were used. Not one warrenty claim in the 3 yrs I built them! The heads in the pictures, fitted with plug thread inserts would run OK and they would never fail in such a way as to destroy the engine. People change them far to soon. Robert
