Grinding the head

[sgregory]

Looking at a car that needs a new head gasket, EA82. I would probably have the heads machined while I was at it as to not repeat the problem any time soon. Anyone know what the going rate to have heads ground is and where a good place would be, anywhere between Portland, OR and Seattle, WA. Thanks for any info.

[Steveman09]

Do this :

 

 

Clean the Block and Head throughly with a BRASS wire brush and razor blade, some carb cleaner helps break up the carbon, then check the block and head with a streight edge for warpage. This will tell you if you need a new block or the head needs to be sent out.

 

If you have .003 or more then thats too much.

[sgregory]

Thanks for the info, I am just wondering how much I might be into it if the heads or the block does have to be machined. Also are the head gaskets blowing a pretty common problem on these engines, seems like I see a lot that say they have blow head gasket, my current Suub has never had any problems.

[revbill]

I had this done a couple of years ago at a place in Kirkland, and I think the price was around $70 for cleaning and resurfacing PER HEAD. This doesn't include pressure testing, either. And since the sympoms of a cracked head are very similar to a bad gasket, you want to be absolutely positive that the head is good before you put the engine back together and put it in the car.

 

You can also just get rebuilt heads or get some from here that are known to be good. I need to do this again (different car), and I think I'm going to just replace the bad head and put a new gasket on the other one.

[HATCHY]

might as well put in some ea71 or ea82 pistons and shave the head hahahaha

[soobscript]

Be careful with the brass brush. They can scratch aluminum.

 

I got my heads resurfaced for $35 each, but I had a lot more stuff done too.

 

If the cracks are questionable, it would be a good idea to have the heads pressure checked.

 

...might as well get a valve job done too

[HATCHY]

yeah no doubt all new seals and everything oh yeah that will help alot to keep your engine last.. i eed to do that im staringt to blow a littel smoke when i start up

[Steveman09]

Be careful with the brass brush. They can scratch aluminum.

 

I got my heads resurfaced for $35 each, but I had a lot more stuff done too.

 

If the cracks are questionable, it would be a good idea to have the heads pressure checked.

 

...might as well get a valve job done too

 

The BRASS brushes will be fine on aluminum, its the steel brushes you have to worry about.

 

I've been cleaning heads at work (SOA Tech) for years and never had an issue yet.

[sgregory]

Thanks guys for all of the info, sound fairly painless price wise, I am heading up to pick the car up today, 87 5-speed awd wagon very stright and clean 157k.

[HATCHY]

nice bro good luck with that it should probably be about what id say 100 bucks for it all if you install the head gasket

[SOOBOUTLAW]

I had my heads milled for 25 bux each. I've been told you MUST mill aluminum heads every time they are removed. I like making my own gaskets, pretty much every one except head and exhaust. Saves hella money, and don't have to wait for an order to come in. I bought an entire gasket set and it retailed for almost 200 bux! But I know an employee (former) who hooked me up with a discount.

[sgregory]

I'm going to start tearing into the engine pretty soon, hope it's as simple as just the heads. Bought the car for $100, so can't go too wrong with that.

[4x4_Welder]

I'd take the heads to Westbay, the closest one to you is in Belfair. I have them do all my machining work, they do some good stuff at a reasonable price.

[idosubaru]

$40 for each head where i go and they are expensive but i like them. there are shops that will do it cheaper.

[Hank Roberts]

Reviving the most pertinent old thread; my rebuild's still getting warranty repairs. Good rebuilder, they stand by their warranty.

 

Apparently they had a bad employee for a while. I got his work before they figured that out.

 

The other head gasket failed this time; this time they're having a good local mechanic who they've authorized to do the warranty work here deal with it. (Man, I sure wish I'd found this guy two years ago, he really does know the old Subarus, and cares about the work.)

 

He called today, said he got the leaky head off, and he can see that a rotary grinder was used to resurface the metal, at least on this head and on the cam tower (the other head, and some other gaskets, leaked and went back to the rebuilder a year or so ago for warranty repair. I thought they'd checked both.

 

I guess opinions vary about what's good work, but I hear heads ought to be planar surfaces and I don't think a rotary grinder can do that, not if it leaves visible marks.

I'll get some pictures tomorrow.

 

Has anyone got pictures of a properly resurfaced head and block, pictures that show how smooth and flat the metal surfaces ought to look?

[Steveman09]

Reviving the most pertinent old thread; my rebuild's still getting warranty repairs. Good rebuilder, they stand by their warranty.

 

Apparently they had a bad employee for a while. I got his work before they figured that out.

 

The other head gasket failed this time; this time they're having a good local mechanic who they've authorized to do the warranty work here deal with it. (Man, I sure wish I'd found this guy two years ago, he really does know the old Subarus, and cares about the work.)

 

He called today, said he got the leaky head off, and he can see that a rotary grinder was used to resurface the metal, at least on this head and on the cam tower (the other head, and some other gaskets, leaked and went back to the rebuilder a year or so ago for warranty repair. I thought they'd checked both.

 

I guess opinions vary about what's good work, but I hear heads ought to be planar surfaces and I don't think a rotary grinder can do that, not if it leaves visible marks.

I'll get some pictures tomorrow.

 

Has anyone got pictures of a properly resurfaced head and block, pictures that show how smooth and flat the metal surfaces ought to look?

 

Looks dont mean ************ 90% of the time, a streight edge and feeler gauges tell you the real story.

 

.002' or more = bad news, head needs to be machined flat.

[Hank Roberts]

Do you mean it can look rough and still be flat enough to be good? I'd guessed that a properly flat surface would also look smooth to the eye. But I'm no expert. Just hoped someone had a photograph that would give me a basis for comparison. Well, I'll go look.

Thanks.

[daeron]

"flat" and "smooth" are two different terms.. you wnat a TINY degree of roughness there for the head gasket to grip on, it helps seat it better. BUT, the eye can see much finer details than the finger can feel in this case.. PERFECTLY flat and smooth would literally have a mirror finish after it was cut. It should be near mirror finish, but still have some pattern from being cut on it.

 

clicky for my photobucket album from when I had my heads milled in doing my head gasket job. you can see the cut pattern, but rest assured that you could NOT really feel it with your fingertips, and just BARELY feel it with a fingernail.

[Hank Roberts]

Thanks!

 

Here's how mine looked at the mechanic's today. Those lines you can see are significant grooves; same pattern of parallel grooves was apparent on the surface of the block and on the manifold too. The brighter area is where the gasket held.

 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wossname/491774179/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wossname/491774131/

 

My mechanic said he does see this sometimes when people come in with failures on rebuilts done elsewhere.

YMMV as they say; I think this one lasted 800 miles.

uthorized him to redo this.

 

Thanks for the comparison pics, this helps understand what's going on.

[Subaru_dude]

yeah, those are some good pics for comparison. the first headgasket job I did, I used a dremmel tool with a steel wire brush attachment... and realized what i was doing when the dust went from dark-colred burned up gasket to silver aluminum looking dust. "GOSH DARN IT!!! oh well." did that to one head only... the other one I got as clean as I could (not very clean). it was my first time, didn't know any better. the car lasted about 6,000 miles then somebody totaled it. almost glad it got totaled... lol. I got my heads machined and got the block almost perfectly clean by scraping off all the big stuff with super fine sandpaper, and finishing it off with brilo-pads. talk about blisters, lol. but boy was it clean!!

 

but anywayzz, I don't mean to hijack the thread but this one's so old i don't guess it matters, lol. has anybody ever used some kinda acid to eat the old gasket off the aluminum? i was talking to some of my old buds at the shop i used to work at, and one of them mentioned that he used some kind of acid on aluminum blocks to clean them up... can't remember what the name of it was though. anybody know of any such tactics?

[beataru]

I know of this paint stripper type stuff, its no ordinary paint thinner. It eats paint for breakfast lunch and dinner.... It is classified as Aircraft grade... we used it to take the paint off of my bro in laws WRX intercooler... as soon as we spread the thick gloupie stuff on it, it began to bubble the paint right off... and I know your looking for the name. but... I forgot.. But I belive we found it at a checker type store... this stuff is seriously toxic.. I bet it could burn your fingers realy quick.

[Hank Roberts]

> I've been told you MUST mill aluminum heads every time they are removed.

 

Well, it's a puzzle.

 

Edited:

 

Okay, on Monday the engine rebuilder is going to talk to the mechanic here about their warranty, and what they'll allow for repairs at this point.

 

The rebuilder isn't defending the way the engine was done two years ago as best practice ---they don't do them with a rotary grinder any more, they use something called a 'Rolock' disk now they told me. So I hope they can both agree, it's old history, I just need a repair done, and agree on how.

 

Note I bought the engine myself 2 years ago -- that's why I'm caught in the middle.

--- It leaked in multiple places on delivery (the first local mechanic never got it down off the rack);

--- the rebuilder took it back and fixed it (agreeing the grinding hadn't been done right on the left head, blaming a bad employee);

--- it ran a year --- about a thousand miles --- and oil and coolant seals failed again;

--- the rebuilder took it back and fixed it; it ran about 800 miles the second year

--- this time, the new mechanic I found who really knows these spotted a leak ("more than a drip, a leak") and called the rebuilder; a few weeks later he was driving the car and it let go on the freeway, big cloud out the tailpipe and from underneath.

--- rebuilder authorized pulling the head and replacing the gasket that had leaked, instead of taking the engine back to fix it themselves this time;

--- mechanic found the rotary wheel marks in the pictures on the head, and also on the block and manifold, and said it needs more than just the head milled to be good;

--- rebuilder authorized milling just the head.

 

I've tried to talk to rebuilder and mechanic; they'll talk to each other Monday and I hope agree.

 

Since it's leaked three times, with the metal the way it is, I think the mechanic's right to doubt that milling just the head will make it reliable. With one year left on the original warranty, I dunno what to ask for.

 

But I use the car to take three kids and my wife on 2-week summer botany field trips --- if it's reliable. So far it's failed to be reliable enough to trust, because of the engine leaking.

 

I don't think it's too much to ask, that the rebuilt engine not leak --- I don't just want "to be back on the road" in a hurry. I want to be able to stay there, this time. I want something different done than was done twice before to 'fix' the problem. Something that will stay fixed, not fail out in the woods.

 

Hoping they work it out.

 

The rebuilder doesn't use that grinding tool any longer -- they use something now called a "Rolock"(?) per phone call. So -- my engine's probably one of the last ones still under warranty that wasn't done with the newer tool.

 

Whether this Rolock is something the mechanic here has and could use on the block, rather than pulling the engine and having the scrapes milled, I don't know. Might ask.

 

So I'm hoping, but I don't quite know for what. Relief.

[Hank Roberts]

Rebuilder hasn't called the mechanic on Monday, as promised on Friday they would. Waiting to hear.

 

Hard to sleep.

Got no place to do this work myself.

[Hank Roberts]

Friday AM:

 

Rebuilder called the mechanic and said, just mill the head and stick it back on, that's all the rebuilder will agree to repair under their warranty.

 

Mechanic cleaned up the head, to send out, and found a crack -- depth of about an inch, 25mm deep, between two of the valves. The metal surface of the head had been hammered to close the surface over the crack, sometime in the past.

 

Mechanic called the rebuilder -- rebuilder said yes, they do that kind of hammer repair on cracks when rebuilding heads, and they consider this normal for old Subaru engines, it's not covered under their warranty.

 

Sound reasonable so far?

[Gloyale]

Friday AM:

 

Rebuilder called the mechanic and said, just mill the head and stick it back on, that's all the rebuilder will agree to repair under their warranty.

 

Mechanic cleaned up the head, to send out, and found a crack -- depth of about an inch, 25mm deep, between two of the valves. The metal surface of the head had been hammered to close the surface over the crack, sometime in the past.

 

Mechanic called the rebuilder -- rebuilder said yes, they do that kind of hammer repair on cracks when rebuilding heads, and they consider this normal for old Subaru engines, it's not covered under their warranty.

 

Sound reasonable so far?

 

Those cracks are always there. It's normal. My first Soob I bought new heads when I found those cracks. $550. Then I found out there an *acceptable flaw*. Since then I've put togheter countless engines with those little "BTV" (Between the Valves) cracks with no problems from it.

There is another place where they can crack. Look in the exhaust ports for cracks through the little wall. There a common crack spot there at each end of it. Although I've never seen the exhaust cracks on single port, non-turbo

I've never heard of hammering them. That's actually a good idea.