Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 19:51:25 -0800 (PST)
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: David Schwarze <des@teleport.com>
Subject: visit to GEX
Volks,
I called GEX this morning hoping to get some good rebuilt cylinder
heads. I talked to Victor, who confirmed my choice of the 1800 heads
for my application and gave me directions from San Diego. Unfortunately
GEX is in the Northern part of LA county. The distance door to door was
135 miles. Vic confirmed that they had my heads in stock, and would
take a check, so I took off at 8 am and drove up there.
I arrived at GEX around 10:30, after Victor's useless directions got
me lost. Turns out he had two streetnames wrong. I was not at all
impressed by their establishment. It was a small rundown looking
warehouse with bars on the windows and no "office" per se. I walked
right into the middle of the shop while several workers in blue dickies
sat around eating sandwiches and jabbering in Spanish. One of them
directed me to a dirty white door in the corner. The office. I knocked
on the door and someone yelled "come in!". I told the guy what I wanted
and he requested to see my core heads. I brought them in and he
politely told me that I could not purchase 1800 heads and give him 1700
cores. So, I offered him the vanagon heads as cores, and he said, "yeah
sure, we'll take those as cores". I got the feeling he was excited
about them and didn't want me to know it. But, it was that or pay an
extra $100 for core charge, or go home without new heads.
Then he brings out the "rebuilt" heads. I open the box to check
them out and am very disappointed. All four combustion chambers had
undergone extensive welding (sloppy) and there were helicoils in two of
the spark plug holes. I told him I would not feel comfortable with
helicoil inserts, and he sent a guy off to find some others with good
threads. The guy took 20 minutes to come back, during which time I
seriously considered taking back my vanagon heads and leaving. I was
thinking about having my cracked heads welded and selling the vanagon
heads to cover part of the cost vs. taking a chance on the GEX heads.
The guy finally returned with two more heads. The first one looked
pretty good, with virgin spark plug threads and combustion chambers.
The second one had good threads but more sloppy welding in the
combustion chamber. I asked them if it mattered, and they said no (of
course). I don't really believe them. I have always been told that any
irregularities in the combustion chamber would be hotspots and good
places for cracks to start. I gave up and bought the heads. I figure I
can clean them up a little with a dremel and some emory paper.
Other things I didn't like:
1. The valves all seemed to be different. One head had "VW" stamped in
the intake valves (obviously reground, not new) while the other did not.
The exhaust valves were also different.
2. The heads were not cc'd. I was told it would be $50 extra per head
for that. With all of the welding done in the combustion chamber, I
just couldn't believe they didn't check the volume. Only by sheer
chance could the compression come out equal on two of their typical
"rebuilt" heads.
3. Their work area was far from clean. Nothing like the pictures in
their catalog. Parts piled high everywhere, dirty as well as clean.
4. Despite what Victor told me on the phone, they would not take my
check. I ended up paying with a credit card instead. They said Victor
was new. I hope he wasn't the one that rebuilt my heads.
I don't know what to conclude yet about GEX. Maybe their stuff is
really okay, and maybe I am being way too picky. I have a one year,
unlimited mileage warranty on the heads. If they self destruct
somewhere in Northwest Territories, though, I'm gonna be hard pressed to
take them up on it. I'm still debating whether or not to take out the
exhaust valves they put in and use the sodium-filled set I have. I'm
sure it would void my warranty and some people have told me that the
sodium filled valves break just as often as the solid ones. I'll
probably just leave what they gave me in there.
-David
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David Schwarze '73 VW Safare Custom Camper (Da Boat)
San Diego (Actually La Mesa) '72 VW Westfalia Camper (Da Project)
California, USA '73 Capri GT 2800 (Da Beast)
e-mail: des@teleport.com '87 Mustang Lx 5.0 (14.17@99.34)
http://www.teleport.com/~des '93 Weber WG-50 (Da Piano)
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