I cleaned off the turbo diesel head for a little work and besides the usual cracks between the valves there are some small cracks by the prechamber inserts. Are these normal too? What causes them?
when I got my rabbit out of the junkyard I took the head off and it had the same cracks your talking about, probly would've worked but I got on ebay and bought another one anyways.
Where exactly are the cracks? Between the valves is normal. Small cracks on the face of the insert happen, not the geatest thing but not horrible. Cracks elsewhere on the face of the head are not good.
They are very small cracks on the face of the head 1/8 inch long right next to the insert (two of them). The guy helping me rebuild the head thinks they're just minor stress cracks like the ones between the valves.
As far as I know, in my limited knowledge, cracks anywhere other than between the valves are bad. My head has a crack from the valve to the prechamber insert. There is a water jacket right under that point and the crack has propagated into that water jacket. Once I get a replacement head the plan is to cut that one up to see how thick the metal is.
RJ
I sent this head to a head rebuilder-welder today, hopefully he can weld the cracks closed. How hard of a process is it to remove and replace the inserts (at a good machine shop)?