Work required to make a 1500 head lead free

[Richard the old one]

One of my cars needs some work to be done on the cylinder head as it is burning out a valve. See my recent posting for a photograph of the head.

I have a spare head and I propose to have new valve guides, valves and seats fitted that are suitable for unleaded petrol. What questions should I ask prospective machine shops? Are there any specific specifications that the new items should be manufactured to as this is a new field for me.

Rimmer's have stop selling reconditioned head but do a recon kit for £107.

Moss Bros could get my head recond for £347 in 4 to 6 weeks but I am assuming that if I go direct to an engine refurbishment company it will be able to get it for a bit less.

Can you recommend any company's in the Bristol or Whitney area's?

[MIG Wielder]

Hi Richard, Jolly good meeting you at TDCIR. I have used Oselli before on my MGB and their work is very good but you may have to wait a bit.
Basically to make your head servicable you need 4 exhaust valve seats. These are the ones that get hot after a long motorway trip and burn. See what they say above valve reclamation and valve guides. They are good.

http://www.oselli.com/service/engineeri ... nditioning

A bit further away than you may want but always worth a trip.
HTH,
Tony.

[Matt Cotton]

The chap you found in Witney looks to be an ex Osseli engineer himself Richard, so a pretty good bet I'd say.

[cliftyhanger]

Az above, just seats but worth getting a 3 angle cut done on them to improve flow. If valves and/or guides are worn do at the same time.
I paid £30 a seat to supply/fit and machine. That was a few years ago, but then again I live in the mist expensive place to get anything done....

[tony g]

If the witney guy is Rob Walker, he was a director of osselli back in the day. I have used Rob for 20 yrs now and he is highly recommended. He has done wrc work on lots of things and a lot of the big name tuners use Rob. He is in new yatt so apologies if its not who you mean.

Tony

[Richard the old one]

Hi Rob.

When I was surfing the next Rob Walker came up and as he is now based in New Yatt, Witney where my son in law lives I will obviously be visiting when we next visit Witney.

[Carledo]

I have a local (to me) head man (head case) who does all this sort of thing for me.

He did a 1500 head for me last year @ £18 a seat. His take is that only the exhaust seats need to be done. Can't remember what the all in price was, but it was south of £100 including a full clean up, paint and valve lapping etc. I supplied a few good spare valves just in case, think he only needed one, the others were good. Obviously if the guides are suss, that would increase the price, but it's all do-able.

Steve