Cylinder head repairs - successful or a waste of time??

[reb78]

I had to change the cylinder head gasket on the 200tdi in my LR 110 at the weekend. Luckily I had a new head to put on it, but planned to refurb the old one.

Overall, it is in fairly good condition, but it has a few small cracks around the glow plug ports (i dont think significant), but more worryingly a crack between the valves on number 3 cylinder. See the pics below. Are these repairable by grinding out and tigging them up and then re-machining, or are these repairs rarely successful?

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Junk it.
There are better heads in scraped units.
I have had heads stitched and welded. But only on heads what were hard to locate replacements.

The other issue is finding a reliable place. I have one good one near by. He is good. But 3 useless places.

I would source a good second hand head and refubuish that.

 

[Johnseat]

Least you've got a decent sized paper weight now.
With how many 200tdi engines are around, it doesn't make sense to try and repair it.

 

[frank horton]

shame the rest of the engine isn't junk, all u have to do then is buy a boat........hahaha.....sorry.........I had a cyl repaired for a 1920 car, cost a fortune but further cracks appeard......the owner still looking for another head / engine after 10 years........
at least there are plenty about........frank

 

[reb78]

Good heads are becoming harder to find, that's why I was thinking about potential repairs.

I will have a look around. I wont chuck this one (have plenty of space to store it) but it doesn't sound like repair is that great.

 

[Wildefalcon]

Ask Frida over at Turner engineering, she'll know what to do.

 

[Bill Edwards]

It is perfectly possible to repair, not sure that it can be done with TIG* but stick, with the right rods, is successful.
The problems come if you have to weld where the valve seats, injector hotspots etc are - I have just sent a head off to have the welds machined out and new valve seat inserted and the buggers won't touch it .

Whether it's worth your time is another matter, it all depends on the cost of a replacement - even if they're less common, old LR heads probably still aren't worth much.

*TIG brazing sounds like it may be a viable method of repairing heads/blocks from what I hear about it, but it isn't something I have any experience of whatsoever.