Here is a refurbished head i bought on ebay. It has been skimmed and all renewed. The guy i bought it off had 100% feedback on hundreds of items. Upon opening it i noticed on the combustion area by the valves some nasty dig marks,although the head is perfectly flat. I contacted him and he assured me its been done on a cnc and pressure tested and also gave me his number if i needed to contact him over the phone. The lads in the garage where my golf is said it should be ok,and the guy who i bought it from said it may be due to the casting of it originally. Here are some photos of the marks,i just wanted your opinon before fitting it with new head bolts,gasket etc. My mate said its not near the water jackets and that the gasket should be fine it just wont last quite as long but its a weekend toy im building not a daily. Any opinions much appreciated,it is flat and has been skimmed,but the marks do concern me.
From experience, if you bung a metal head gasket on it and fit it properly it'll be fine. Mine has minor damage in a similar area and was assured by Toyotec and rubjonny that it'll be fine. Couple of thousand miles in it's the best behaved head I've had on my mk2.
whats the best way to get the burs off without damaging the skimmed surface of the head? apart from that im happy with it,but was just a concern.
it should be ok as long as the face is flat the marks dont look that bad if you want to check it before you bolt it down put the head on the block and try a 0.002" feeler gauge round the outside or put a steel rule on the face to see if it is flat
the marks are inside the combustion area so will be no problem at all with the gasket sealing, just as aove might cause a hot spot so grind em down a touch with a dremel. no need to go mad and it doesnt need to be 100% perfectly flat either as i say its not a part of the sealing face. could be a casting fault or something got into the cylinder which got chewed up and spat out, doesn't look bad at all though I'd be happy to use it. if it was something that got in it wasnt in there for long as it would have made loads more marks, so prob 1 cycle then got blown out and away.
