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Date:         Thu, 14 Oct 2004 12:26:37 -0400
Reply-To:     Kenneth Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Kenneth Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Subject:      AMC Heads (My views)
Comments: To: The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
In-Reply-To:  <031b01c4b081$46c06460$0a0ba8c0@RON>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

My experience with Vanagon heads has been this:

1. If you have any type of crack between the valves of a waterboxer head toss it into the nearest trash recepticle or call your friendly neighborhood scrap man and tell him to come and get them. They are done! If they aren't leaking combustion gasses into the coolant now they will fail within the next six months to a year. Using old heads with cracks between the valves is one of the causes of the Vanagon's bad head reputation where folks are redoing heads every couple of years. I have never had that problem with my customers.

2. Never use rebuilt heads. They usually stink because since about 90-95% of all waterboxer heads have cracks between the valves two things happen. Number one the rebuilder is going to look at your core and say it is bad because (drum roll) you have cracks between the valves. When you factor your core cost into the rebuilt price they are no longer a "bargain". Number two the rebuilder gets the cracked heads and then welds the cracks so that they can rebuild them and then sell them to someone else. This causes stress in the head and soon it is cracked and causing problems.

3. AMC heads. These heads are made in Spain. The Koehlbenschmidt heads are merely AMC heads with the KS ground into a blank spot where AMC would normally be raised. So no difference that way.

Valve stems: As far as the valve stem issue goes I have been installing and selling these AMC heads for about 6 years now. I have never had one have one single problem. I know that other vendors have made much of this supposed problem. It is also very convenient how they all have some magical fairy dust to sprinkle on the heads so that only their particular ones that they sell don't have this problem. Some like Go Westy charge more for the dust, others throw it in for free (very nice of them). Any way you slice it all I can tell you is that my experience with these heads direct from my supplier have been very positive.

Corrosion resistance: Not only have I not had any valve problems but I have also had the chance to inspect a set of these heads that have been installed on a customer's van for about six years. During that time the engine sat for about 4 years (this is the worst case scenerio for head corrosion). The coolant in the engine was Walmart Tech 2000 (gasp, horror, gasp) green with water from my spigot mixed at 50/50. The coolant is phosphate free. Are you ready for the result on the head sealing surface? How much corrosion would you guess was there? Zero! Nothing. Now if these were the factory VW heads they would have been pitted to snot by this time. I have looked over the service records of countless Vanagons and many of them needed new heads because of pitting problems after only four or five years (this is using the magical blue antifreeze as well). They have changed the alloy of the head with the AMC heads and also reinforced it with more metal in a spot where they tended to crack. The results are an aftermarket product with superior corrosion resistance to the original and also superior crack resistance. All this at almost half of what you would pay at the dealer ($395 from me versus $627 from VW).

So in conclusion, I like the AMC heads. They are what I install on my customer's Vanagons and what I intend to keep installing. Now if I could only find a good source for magical fairy dust :)

Thanks, Ken Wilford John 3:16 http://www.vanagain.com http://www.strictlyvwauctions.com http://www.eurovan.org http://www.vwcabrio.org Phone: (856)-327-4936 Fax: (856)-327-2242

-----Original Message----- From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of The Bus Depot Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 1:31 PM To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Subject: Re: Good Price on 1.9l heads?

> who's got the Good Price on a set of heads?

You have your choice of new or rebuilt.

If you buy new heads, beware. While all of the new heads come from AMC Spain (even the ones sold at the VW dealer), they are not all the same. There have been numerous reports of valve stem problems with some of the new AMC heads sold by U.S suppliers other than myself. The problem is that AMC's U.S. importer (who supplies all of the U.S. auto parts distributors) does not actually buy the fully assembled head from AMC, only the bare head. Then they assemble it themselves, using parts obtained from other sources. Apparantly, some of the valve stems they buy are not properly hardened, and tend to mushroom over time. AVP, who supplies my rebuilt engines and heads, has told me that they have to disassemble every new AMC head they buy and replace the valve stems before installing it. Some are better than others, and they're not willing to chance it.

My AMC 2.1L heads do NOT have these valve stems because I do NOT get them from AMC's U.S. importer. Mine are fully assembled in Europe by AMC themselves. What's more, I can offer a better price by bypassing the U.S. distributor - $379 each: <http://busdepot.com/details.jsp?partnumber=025101065C>

As for 1.9L heads, I cannot get them directly from AMC, but you can use 2.1L heads on your 1.9L engine. There is only a very small difference in the size of the combustion chamber; otherwise they're identical. A perfectionist might argue against mixing one 1.9L and one 2.1L head on the same engine, but many people do it. AVP tells me that many, many cores that they get back have one of each, and clearly ran 100,000 miles or more that way without any problems.

A cost-saving alternative is to buy rebuilt heads. We offer good quality AVP rebuilts that use all European made internals, for just $219 (plus a $50 core deposit). These are built to order so they may not ship immediately. Link: <http://busdepot.com/details.jsp?partnumber=025101065CX>

- Ron Salmon The Bus Depot, Inc. www.busdepot.com (215) 234-VWVW

_____________________________________________ Toll-Free for Orders by PART # : 1-866-BUS-DEPOT


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