88305tpiT/A

iTrader: (2)

So I am putting the heads for my new motor back together last night and I go to set an assembled one down and I hear this metalic "clink". I looked over the head to make sure I hadnt dropped a key or something in one of the cooling passages and what I found was really strange...

It looks like a flat portion of the casting came loose from inside the water jacket. it was from the area around the heat crossover on the inside of the intake face wall. I checked the other head and it seems that both heads had lots of casting marks and flash there. They both had a more or less square area that was thicker than the surrounding area and on this head it just seemed to pop off at some point.

I know I ran with it like this because there was the green coolant coating on all sides of the piece. The piece was about 1 inch by 1 inch and about the thickness of a couple of credit cards. I put my finger and thumb on either side of the area it came off of and it seems to have about twice that much thickness left although I really cant tell too well.

It just was really strange to me that this much of the casting would just "break" off. because it was bigger than the cooling hole I had to hold the thing with some long needle nose pliers and use a long shank carbide burr in a die grinder to cut it into peices that I could extract. I blew out the cooling passages as best I could and now I just hope that the rest of the casting doesnt have things like this. I also hope the other head doesnt decide to lose this peice as well. Just to be dilligent I did try to dislodge that spot on the other head but it seemed to be on there pretty good.

Weird