Back to the SAGA of my cylinder heads.... The machine shop had figured out that they should be able to use the Hughes Engines springs but I guess there was a miscommunication some where and they never ordered them thinking for some reason that I was ordering them... So my heads have just sat for the past week or so. But I'd finally called them yesterday and they were supposed to call me back but I had to call them again today to find out what was happening. So the Hughes springs were ordered today by the machine shop and should be here next week sometime. They had worked on the heads a bit more I guess and had found out that the supposed valve job done by Clearwater was CRAP... They said that the valve job on the heads doesn't even match nor was it don't properly.
So they are doing a 3 angle valve job and resurfacing the heads and will install new valve seals also when doing all the work. Now it's been a while since I've had engine work done so I don't have anything to gauge it by but my total for everything will be about $780 with $280 being parts and shipping. Is that a reasonable price for the work being done?

 

Seems reasonable to me. I had some similar work done on a head 10 years ago and it cost me about $380. You're paying twice that (but 2 heads), and 10 years later, considering inflation I think you got a good price

 

That makes me feel a little bit better then. Lesson learned here. Buy bare heads and let machine shop build them for ya. And if you do buy RTR heads then make sure they are gone thru top to bottom. I'm still not happy that all this is having to be done to something I had bought supposedly setup already. But when I bought these heads in 2013 I think I paid about $1200 for them. So even with all this work I'm still under $2K for a set of heads.

 

WOW.....
Ding Dang Nuts..... This saga of these head and me trying to get this Jeep running & driving is just crazy and I sometimes feel cursed... So I'd hoped to have the heads prior to Christmas so I could work on engine but the parts hadn't arrived yet. Then they got the parts finally on Wednesday and went to put the heads together only to find out that they were the wrong parts. Then when they try to call Hughes Engines they find out that Hughes Engines has taken Wednesday off during the holiday week. But then to add to things when they try calling them on Thursday & Friday (Dec 28 & 29) they can't get an answer to the calls so it seem that Hughes Engines took those days off so now it won't be until Jan 2 before the machine shop can get in contact with them. So I won't have my heads back until the second week of Jan would be my guess. WTF????

Frustrating and aggravating to say the least.

 

Yeah, they don't call it the 'silly season' for nothin'...... It appears that Murphy is having a field day with you. Or, maybe, the world is conspiring to see that you actually kick back and relax this holiday season? Blessing, not curse??

 

This thing STILL isn't done?

 

All good things take time!

 

Dang Nab don't I wish this saga was over... Really do.

Then it's gunna be worth an whole heck of a lot.


So the whole wrong parts thing finally got straightened out with Hughes Engines and the new spring kit should be here already or early next week. And then for the rocker arm studs I was finally able to find some replacement studs but they are a special order item and take approximately 14 days to ship after being ordered. So I've got them ordered and once I get the heads back I'll get them installed and then when the new rocker studs arrive I'll get the valve train all reassembled & then put the engine back together.
I've been slowly working on other projects on the Jeep to keep me busy.

 

WOW, 12 days later and we're sitting here with Hughes Engines screwing this whole thing up. It seems they have a policy of not shipping out new parts until the old ones have been returned. Now I can see this when you ordered the incorrect part and need to have them replaced with something different but not when it was YOUR screwup and you'd sent the incorrect parts. Plus when the machine shop had called them about receiving the incorrect part if this was the policy then it should have been properly explained which it wasn't. So Hughes hasn't even shipped out the new spring kit yet. So I told the machine shop to FO and I ordered the same kit from HiPoTek today and as soon as I have them in hand I'll run them over to the machine shop. So hopefully I'll have my heads back before the end of the month. The rocker arm studs should be here Monday but have been delayed due to weather. It's been too cold for me to be in the garage working this past week. We've had single digit weather with night temps below 0*.

Will update once I have parts.

 

That sounds way too familiar...... We have had single-digit HIGHS for the last week..... below zero overnight. It's friggin' COLD out there. Today though, we had a heatwave. It got up to 20......