WBX heads on an aircooled autocraft cased engine?

[930]

Thanks piledriver.

I will post some pics once the welding is done.

[930]

OK I took the heads to the welder and he said that it might be worthwhile to tap, thread and plug the round openings in the head (circled in red in the picture) and then use for example engine block filler (such as Moroso 35571) to fill the holes which are not round ( orange in the picture) instead of welding.

The reason he said that if the holes next to the combustion chamber are welded it will most likely go through to the combustion chamber and then machining would be required. I told him that the head would be machined anyways...Also he said that to minimize distortion due to heat, a stainless circle the size of the cylinder opening should be installed. Sounds quite a bit of extra work to me...

Are these valid points and would the suggested alternative work, or is it a case that he's not too interested in welding the head to begin with

(Picture is not mine - I just found it in the interwebs and added the circles...)

[Piledriver]

Take a broken trailer to a welder.
Do not trust heads to an average, or even really great welder who doesn't do heads all the time.
Most welders will give it their best shot, by nature.
That is not necessarily a favor to you, they just wanna see if they can weld it.
If it doesn't go well, you get to pay them and keep the scrap heads.

Take the heads to a head guy.
Even if it costs triple.
They weld heads....Sometimes all day long.
If they don't weld head, find another head guy.

[930]

OK so basically welding is the way to go and not tapping and threading the holes similar to oil galleys in T1 case?

Would it be so that the head heats so much that the plugs wouldn't stay (water)tight?

Take a broken trailer to a welder.
Do not trust heads to an average, or even really great welder who doesn't do heads all the time.
Most welders will give it their best shot, by nature.
That is not necessarily a favor to you, they just wanna see if they can weld it.
If it doesn't go well, you get to pay them and keep the scrap heads.

Take the heads to a head guy.
Even if it costs triple.
They weld heads....Sometimes all day long.
If they don't weld head, find another head guy.

[Piledriver]

The little round holes, yeah, you could plug those either way in a few seconds, welding would likely be faster with the right prep.

The big triangle shaped holes right by the bore registers will be much harder to tap and plug..

The trick with welding aluminum is buy beer, preheat, and to let someone who is really good at it do it.

If you put too much heat in the heads you will need to have them re-heat treated before final machining /prior to installing guides and seats..
It might be a good idea anyway. ASK YOUR HEAD GUY.

[flyguyeddy]

lokked briefly at your tread at TS and here's what i did with my WBX heads
welded and plugged the holes facing down and run water in /out the 2 other big holes at the top.
run an small electricpump and a small radiator to cool the heads.
it was on a 2,1 L "oxy" using stock WBX valves , rods ,pistons crank etc and type4 sylinders.
the heads seem to flow well as the engine run very good with a VZ 25 cam 10:1 compression E85 and megasquirt+ eDIS spark

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Is this engine currently running? How well does the water flow through the heads? Any hot spots? Im looking to do this exact thing