I embraced the creep - is my cylinder head toast?

[Arizona02]

Cooling system electrolysis Corrosion, I would have the cyl head welded where needed then resurfaced / milled.

 

[GoldLion]

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who responded.  I really appreciate it.  I would like to keep the period correct head (E12) on the engine. I contacted Walloth and Nesch and Rogerstii to see if there were any E12 tii specific (no carburettor fuel pump studs and drilled hole) heads available and hit a brick wall, to the extent where I'm not sure there are any E12 heads available full stop. WN said they are awaiting delivery.  No response from Rogerstii.  As tempting as it is to purchase a new E21 head and change pistons, upon considering the advice given, I have dropped the head off to a reputable cylinder head machine shop, who are confident they can repair it.  I will be updating next week and in the meantime will keep living the dream.

 

Daniel    

[oldguy]

If you take a metal pick and start digging on the corrosion, you'll find it goes deeper than you think.  when fixing that, you take a die grinder and get it back to bare uncorroded aluminum, then weld in that area.  Then when surfaced you surface the weld into the head, it will be barely visible and not leak.   

[TobyB]

The worry, is, though, that the jacket has corroded internally somewhere.

 

In our case, it had opened a leak into a head bolt bore...

 

t

 

[GoldLion]

Hi everyone, just following up on this topic.  Once again, thank you to everyone who commented.  I took my head to a specialist and they were confident they would be able to sort it out.  All up i was very fortunate as the valves, guides, seats and rockers were all showing little to no wear.  I replaced the rocker arms and valve springs as these were relatively cheap insurance.  They were able to weld the corroded areas nicely and resurface the head as was suggested by a number of you.  All in all for disassembly, cleaning, welding, valve & seat grinding, resurfacing and reassembly it was $550 Australian.  Anyone in the South East Queensland area who wants to know the shop, please PM me - they were great.

 

All the best,

 

Daniel

 

[2002Scoob]

Looks great!!

[Simeon]

That's a great price.