greiswig wrote:
Machine ship finally got back to me. There are leaks in my cylinder head around one or two of the valve seats. Rather than spending time and money digging in to this to find out how bad it is, he said he'd rather start with a known good casting.
Sheesh...
So, does anyone know of a used engine with a good head on it sitting around somewhere waiting for attention?
What kind of leaks? If it's basically normal valve job work, it should be pretty reasonable. Definitely better than buying another head (which will probably have the same issue). If it's straight without any cracks, I would let the shop do the work. It should be good as new at that point.
If you still want a used head,
http://vmdieselspecialist.com/ has them. They'll run you nearly $700, and take a couple of weeks to get here, but are in really good shape.
I also have a head that has not been checked or cleaned up. It suffered some broken rockers, and possibly a head gasket leak. I can have a machine shop take a look at it, but I doubt it will be any better than the one you have.