Due to financial and time reasons I have to try and reuse my existing heads. There are a couple of “standard” valve cracks in between the intake and exhaust valves. Has anyone ever reused the old heads with any success or failures? Prior to me pulling the heads I had good compression numbers.

I was planning on lapping the valves and replacing all the gaskets and seals. am I just wasting my time?

Here is a pic of one of the cracks.


A little background of the issue.
Started truck and was burning coolant. Shut it off right away and pulled the top of the engine off the next day.

Found the previous owner had replaced the plenum and intake gaskets. He either reused the TTY intake bolts or did not torque them properly. A few of the intake bolts were finger tight. I suspect this is where my coolant was entering number 6.

I just don’t want to bolt it all up and found that the cracks in the heads went all the way up to the water jackets. Can this happen on these heads?

 

Check with a local reputable machine shop and ask for a blunt answer.

 

There really isn't a water passage near enough to the number six intake runner on the manifold to intake interface to account for bad intake gaskets getting coolant in there.... If you have cracks in the combustion chamber on number six, I think that is a more likely source.....

Heads can be had for under 300 bucks a piece.... from Clearwater in Florida. (you can find them on Ebay, for about 270 a whack for completely assembled heads, that are a better design than the factory stock heads)

I can tell ya what the Machine Shop will say.... Don't re-use them. They are already cracked, and the cracks are just gonna get worse, and could potentially cause further damage to the engine. (hydro-lock anyone?)

If there is any possible way to manage it, new heads are the only real fix for this issue. I personally, will NOT reuse known bad heads. (been doing the wrench turning thing for over 30 years now)

 

I wouldn't reuse them. You are bound to have misfire issues. Like mentioned above CCH has heads cheap and they are HD heads so they won't crack. You can get the 2.02 valve heads for the price of stock replacements

 

The only heads clearwater has is 375 a piece that I see what heads are you talking about.

 

are the ebay heads any good? any advantage to them over stockers?

 

I sent a e-mail asking how much it would cost to ship to canada, i'm looking at about $90 a head in shipping charges. I have called around and found some locaclly for about $350 (can) a head with everthing. Which at this time is a little out of my budget.

I guess my biggest question right now is...Are these cracks that go from the intake and exhaust ports typically a dry crack in which case, the crack is isolated from coolant passages. or are they a wet crack?

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/98-Do...Q5fAccessories

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/DODGE...Q5fAccessories

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/DODGE...Q5fAccessories

I know you said your on a budget and stuff, but doing something right the first time is way better than doing it twice and spending even more the second time...

 

Thats pretty broad question....There are lots of different heads you can buy on ebay from lots of sources like independent machine shops and factory direct as well as good and bad used ones?....ebay is just a tool to buy and sell something as efficiently as possible but its up to you to read and do your homework before buying....I would find something that looks good then check the feedback and google the seller or brand of the heads and that will give you the best answer...

as far as being on a budget usually you can find a whole ram about to be junked for a few hundred bucks....try craigslist people are always selling or parting out something....or a junkyard...I cant see them charging $600 for a set of used heads when they only give a couple hundred to buy the whole truck..**** I found two whole corvette motors on CL for $500 a piece the other day....and two sets of heads one 350 and one 327 $100 for all...

 

ya I was just kinda curious, HeyYou said that one could get heads of ebay that are a better design than the stock heads, so I took this to imply that there was a particular brand to look for on there.