Clacking/tapping noise due to blown head gasket

[roosm]

The bare head would cost as much as the Summit by the time you did the valve job on it. The remanufactured heads may or may not be a good deal. It depends on the reputation of the rebuilding company. I've had both good and bad experiences with remanufactured.

I am not impressed with the original Indmar heads. They work, but they are not anything special. I think the Summit or Mercruiser heads would be an improvement.

But I guess my (in that case) inferior head would work together with a new summit-head?
I found a used head on ebay, mercruiser one, where the other head was ruined (together with the engine I guess) because the engine was hydro-locked on that side. Seller guarantees no cracks and has tested with feeler gauge.
Looks to be in good condition. Price with shipping would be 280 + customs = 364 dollars. Compared with 521 dollars for JEGS (or 524 for same thing from summit) heads.
For the 160 I think I will be able to have the head resurfaced and if there are shortcomings with any of the valves (even if the seller, who is a mechanic I think, have checked them and says they are ok) have them fixed.

Question then comes to would a used mercruiser be better than a new "Chevrolet Performance 12558060"?

If I were in the US and the used head was 100 + 50 in shipping I would lean towards that. But now it is 100 + 180 shipping.

Thanks for all the help!

[CJD]

Any idea of the hours on the used head?

The advantage of new is that you know what you are getting. With used engine parts there is always risk in the unknown.

It is best to have identical heads, but many, many of these small block engines are on the road/water with non-matching heads. As long as the intake and exhaust ports match the manifolds, and the combustion chambers are the same size, the engine will run just fine.

[roosm]

Hi,

No, I have no idea on the hours. Though I checked the sellers location and realized that he is located in a coastal town in Florida, meaning the head has most likely been used in saltwater.
Sure, my heads has as well, though the saltwater is not as salt here in Sweden and usually is a little bit kinder to all the engine components compared to over in Florida.
This put me off a little on the head and looking closely at the water jackets/channels in the head on ebay I see some rust and that tells me I am probably better off with a new head.
Sure, most likely the head will be fine and it will live as long as the rest of the engine. If the shipping would be the same on both heads so the used one would cost 180 incl shipping + 30% tax/customs I would probably go down that road. Now it is 280 + tax compared to 400 + tax. The difference in the end is just a little over a 100 bucks.

From what I can tell both heads, the summit and mine, are 64 cc and both heads use the same size valves and everything. No difference in that regard from what I can tell.

Leaning towards ordering a head from summit today.

Thanks,
Mike

[pridekit]

Where in Florida? I might be able to swing by and look at it if it's within a couple hours of Miami.


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[roosm]

Where in Florida? I might be able to swing by and look at it if it's within a couple hours of Miami.


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Wow! You guys are unreal. Pridekit will drive around Florida and CJD will act as my shipping agent. Thank you for the offers!

I actually went with my gut and bought that used head after emailing with the seller back and forth. He seemed like a nice guy, he is a mechanic and runs a shop and I can't really imagine that his business would be ripping off swedes when selling used parts on eBay. I wouldn't be surprised if the previous owner who got a new engine, hopefully from the insurance company never sees any of the cash the used parts bring in. Neither will the insurance company.

He checked it with a flat bar, he checked all valves for sticking and sealing, he cleaned it up and painted it. He guarantees no cracks. So sounds good and he had 100% positive eBay rating.

Hopefully it turns out too be a good choice.

If I happen to be in Miami I will buy a beverage of choice!

Do you wakeboard in the ocean outside Miami? Can you go on the inside of the small long islands/beaches like south beach? I would guess they are no wake? Seems very windy?

[pridekit]

Wow! You guys are unreal. Pridekit will drive around Florida and CJD will act as my shipping agent. Thank you for the offers!

I actually went with my gut and bought that used head after emailing with the seller back and forth. He seemed like a nice guy, he is a mechanic and runs a shop and I can't really imagine that his business would be ripping off swedes when selling used parts on eBay. I wouldn't be surprised if the previous owner who got a new engine, hopefully from the insurance company never sees any of the cash the used parts bring in. Neither will the insurance company.

He checked it with a flat bar, he checked all valves for sticking and sealing, he cleaned it up and painted it. He guarantees no cracks. So sounds good and he had 100% positive eBay rating.

Hopefully it turns out too be a good choice.

If I happen to be in Miami I will buy a beverage of choice!

Do you wakeboard in the ocean outside Miami? Can you go on the inside of the small long islands/beaches like south beach? I would guess they are no wake? Seems very windy?

Wakeboarding in the ocean is a bit tough unless it's really calm, but we have gone down the the Florida keys and wakeboard end in the Gulf of Mexico/Florida bay early in the morning. Usually we wakeboard on the inside of the islands, it's has a lot of boat traffic and it can get pretty windy, but we have a lot of fun

If you make it down to Miami we will have to take the boat out :P


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[suprasaltareaud]

Mike. That is one seriously crazy story. Have you got the head yet? Is it in

[roosm]

Hey guys,

I have got the head now. It arrived last friday and I didn't have the possibility to work at it last weekend but the plan is to put it all together on saturday. I got a friend of mine to help me out so it should be too much trouble putting it together.
I have already cleaned all gasket materials, painted the heads, painted and cleaned exhaust manifolds and risers. So should just be to put it back together.

I have all the gaskets I need, RTV, thread chasers, some assembly lube, thread sealers, sockets of the correct size and everything I need for a nice install.

The new heads looks nice on first examination.

My plan is to, in the event that something foreign fell down the oil lines, some gasket material or something, you cant be too sure, even though I tried to avoid it.
Empty the engine of the old oil. Add new oil, run the engine. Change the filter. Run the engine. Change oil and filter.
Should do it?

Mike

Mike

[roosm]

So when looking at the head in better light (had just looked at while lying in my car) I saw that the guy selling the head probably more or less painted the head without spending too much time removing any rust spots around the exhuast ports for example.
I decided brush it down with a steel brush and clean it up a little better before painting it all over again. This added some time to my project so I didn't get as far as I would have liked.

I did manage to get both heads on and the intake as well.
Didn't have any time to test compression or anything so right now it just looks good, but I don't really know anything.

Next step would be to install the distributor and set the timing.

The balancer does have the TDC mark on it that lines up with the timing tab on the timing chain cover. Though I have no (from what I could see at least) timing marks/degrees to be able to find 10 BTDC.
I understand that this is 10 degrees BTDC on the cam (and distributor rotor) so that would mean 20 degrees BTDC on the balancer.
My plan is to measure the circumference of the balancer and calculate where the 20 degree mark should be and mark it by using two tape strips that leaves a small gap for the 20 degree mark and then spray paint that gap with white paint.

When setting the "base" / initial timing before firing up the engine I guess I should put that 20 degree mark in timing tab gap so that the engine sits at 10 BTDC.
Then put an ohm-meter on the distributor cable from the ignition coil as well as the spark cable for the no 1 cylinder.
Put the rotor pointing at the No 1 cylinder in the distributor cap.
Turn the distributor CW until the ohm meter reads infinite. Then turn the distributor CCW to the point where the rotor just makes contact with the No 1 cylinder connection and thus giving me close to 0 Ohm resistance.
Carefully torque down the distributor hold down clip without turning the distributor.

This should, I guess, set the engine at 10 BTDC.

Next step would be to get a timing light, build my own timing shunt (as I don't have one and I guess they might be hard to come by over here, and unnecessarily expensive).
Start the engine and check the timing with the light.

But is it really necessary? Would I actually be able to be more accurate this way than I would with my method above?
Seems to me the method should be at least as accurate as my ability to mark the 20 degree btdc on the balancer. Meaning that would be the weak point.
Of course I would have to make sure she runs good afterwards and if it doesn't, I would need to adjust the timing

Thanks,
Mike

[chris young]

10 degrees is what you want on the balancer, not 20 Take a really good look, there should be timing marks on it somewhere. Also Summit and other places sell tape that you can put on the balancer you just need to know the size of the balancer. I'm sure you already know this, but for anyone reading this who doesn't, 10 degrees BTDC is the point when the spark fires, so that would be when the points open on older motors, or when the gap on the optical sensor on electronic conversions is aligned. On my electronic module there is an LED that tells you that the gap is aligned, so for your initial static timing you can just set the crank at 10 deg BTDC and rotate the distributor until the led lights. (while the rotor is aligned with #1 coil wire)

Hope this helps