When I bought my Camaro it was all togther,
running, and had made a few passes down the local
drag strip befoe it's teenage owner slid off the
road and brought the car to an abrupt stop
against a couple of huge oak trees. I was told
that the 4 bolt 350 was a fresh rebuild with
"new" 882 GM heads. When I got the motor apart
last week, it sure enough was a fresh rebuild.
The cross hatching was still clear as day on the
cylinder walls. But, the "new" heads (which were
still in fresh gray casting metal) turned out not
to be so new. When we dipped them at the machine
shop, what shows up, but three drilled, pinned
and welded cracks, and one un-drilled, un-pinned
and un-welded crack - right through a valve seat.
One head good, one head trash. Fortunately for
me, the machinist had a set of matching heads
that the previous owner had scrapped as a pair
when he discovered one head with some serious
cracks. One was trash and one was perfect. The
machinist gave me the good head. All's well that
end's well, but it goes to show, unless you took
all the parts out of a box and built it yourself
(or a very trusted friend did it for you) you
never know what you got.
=====
Dick J
In East Texas
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