Cylinder Head Work

The lowly cylinder head. It always takes the heat. The valves, springs, locks, retainers, the overhead camshafts, the expanding and contracting metals, worn out coolant, stuck thermostats, broken timing belts, leaky radiators, hoses and water pumps, failed coolant temp sensors, bad cooling fans and fan clutches. These components, or should I say failed components, all could contribute to an overheated engine, blown head gasket, or a bunch of bent valves, maybe even catastrophic engine failure.

Engine stuff eventually wears out. Valves, valve guides, valve springs, valve seats, valve seals, valve locks, retainers, camshafts and rocker arms, etc. don’t last forever. At some point parts reach the end of their useful life. We are here to help you get your cylinder head, or heads, back in top shape. First we disassemble, clean and inspect the casting for obvious damage and wear. We can pressure test, vacuum test or magnaflux the casting looking for cracks or porosity. We can repair damaged threads, remove broken fasteners, line bore cam journals on overhead cam engines and correct for cam to journal clearance.

When rebuilding a cylinder head we go thru and check head thickness, head straightness, journal clearance, valve guide wear, valve seat run out and concentricity, valve spring seated pressure, installed valve stem heights and when checking valves, stem wear and margins, valve keeper grooves, and reface usable valves, or replace them if they have excess wear. We use formed carbide tooling to cut the valve seats in the cylinder head giving us precise seat widths and correct upper and lower flow angles into and out of the combustion chamber. We can straighten and weld cracked and bent aluminum heads, install new std. or oversize valve seats, port match intake and exhaust ports to manifolds for better flow and performance and set up springs and cut spring seats for over size and high performance applications.

All this giving you better performance, horsepower gains and better fuel economy, depending on how you want the engine set up. Once the heads are done you are ready to bolt them on and go. Oh don’t forget to replace the head bolts on engines requiring torque limiting head bolts. These bolts are designed to stretch to achieve their clamping force and many cannot be reused. We do offer our clients Free Tech sheets for both timing belt replacement and torque spec’s print outs on your engine and or head project to help you get it back together correctly. Our tech department is always glad to answer any questions you might have and help you out.

Before you finish any project where you have had a previous failure try to find out the actual cause of the failure so you don’t have to go thru another unscheduled tear down of your head or engine.

Remember if you need the tools and parts to do the job get your list together and we will give you “Quality Parts at Engine Service” with competitive pricing and great value. We also should have all the tools you need to either Rent or Purchase to get the job done right the 1st Time.