Lookin' good Zach. Dirty old castings will crackle and pop and all the black **** will float up and jump onto your tungsten and all that good stuff. Keep cleaning the tungsten and keep grinding out the **** and wire brushing (new, clean stainless brush). Then get back in there and go at it some more. Once it starts welding pretty good, which it looks like it has it'll start going easier. You got to just **** it up and keep calm. Getting it hot enough with a preheat is critical or it will be real hard to get a nice bead going. The casting will **** the heat right away from the puddle sometimes and it just won't pool up right. It'll take a while to get it hot enough. Looks like you got it pretty good now. Make sure you post some pix. of the completed repair. I know it's gonna be flawless.
Thanks Zach, for the info & questions of this thread. I remember something about adding silicon? to aid flow, when casting AL. Then all the stories here about impurities to deal with as well. The only thing I know is that varying alloys of Al harden or temper differently, and some not at all. Lot of good experience offered here.
Zack, I have the luxury/curse of working in a large and fully equiped automotive machine shop, and have access to all the tooling and machines to play with. I've been checking my heads on a pressure testing bench. With your skills you could easily make one up yourself if you think you would use it enough to justify the time to fab/space in the shop it would take up. If you're not going to use it alot, just take the head to any compatent Machine shop and have them check it for you. Make sure they mark well "All" the spots that are leaking! (not trying to curse you) If you end up "Failing" a couple times like I did, each time you re-weld and grind down and check again a shop will probably keep charging you each time you come back. Around here the billed houly labor rate is anywhere from $82 to $110 an hour, which adds up fast! If you decide to make your own, All you need to do is build a rectangle framed table that can rotate 360 degrees. Make provissions on the north and south side to attach multiple arms that will hold down pressurized rubber circles on all of your water jacket holes. You will need to make all these "arms" and "rubbers" as small and un-attrusive as possible in order to navigate around them with a spraybottle of liquid and a flashlite. When you spot a leak, the liquid will bubble up around the area that needs to be fixed again. Our shop prefers to use a mixture of soap and water. It bubbles nicely. I'll get some pictures of the bench, they are worth a thousand words. and I'll take some pics of the heads and the Pressure Bench later this week. Good Luck, as crazy as this process is, I still believe that decent runnable Edmunds heads are worth it. I couldn't see myself spending this much time on a set of Offy or Edelbrocks! -Torr
thanks torr i was thinking of sealing the bottom with a large piece of rubber and then filling the head with water and presurizing through the wateroutlet to check the top..... the bottom is where i was lost...sounds like alot to make what your saying...but im sure i'll figure out a way to do it im already too much into these heads to spend anymore so its gona be an at home job! thanks Zach
This has been one of my biggest problems, when the head starts cooling too quick the head "pops" another crack in a different spot! I'm going to try this Kitty Liter trick, also I plan on pre-heating alot more. Any advice on what is a good pre-heat temp to get the head to? I could check it with a Infa-red temp sensor. Lots of good info and tips on here, I know I have benifited from reading. -TORR
I'm sure that way would work allright, but I would be more concerned with the block mating side and the combustion chamber leaking. The top of the head would be the least of my worries. If you want to "waste even more time" on these heads of yours, you could try "pinning" or "stiching" them with aluminum rod. I'm surprised no-one here has spoken of that yet. -TORR
i actually got a PM with info on pinning the head its far too much work for this head as its a LONG crack going over all these fins and then down into the plug hole/recess i think my combustion chamber might be good....i cut way down into it with a series of 1/2" drilled holes then welded....went smaller drilling, welded, etc....till i had it all filled in.... who knows! im not sure im gona get time to work on it anymore this week as i need to get some other stuff done im just glad that its not a total write off now thanks Zach
Anybody here do this resurrectionist thing commercially? I've got a set of '32-6 Evans heads with a really deep eaten out place in one chamber...would like to find someone easterly, because after a few terrifying experiences shipping stuff, no way am I going to entrust delivery people of any sort with irreplaceable parts.
The Jalopy Journal
