Can this be fixed? (Cylinder head content)

Been trying to track down a massive oil leak on the MX6 for the last month.

Found the problem. Seems the machine shop has dropped my head. This was not damaged when it was dropped off, and i was apparently delusionally tired when i installed it and didn't notice it.

Can this be fixed? Or do i have to put in the time and money to port and swap another head over?

I can't catch a break.

How the hell? I don't know that something like that can be saved... there's a whole lot of filling that would need to happen.

I'm thinking you could get away with spreading on some Permatex #2 (non-hardening sticky black goop).

I have no idea what the pic is meant so show, but I cant see any signs of the casting being dropped? I do see some riffles in the alloy that suggest someone went mental with a wire wheel to clean something off the head.

Where is the oil leaking out of and is it under pressure at that point?

It's really bowed in in places. A good 1/16th, and i'm not really feeling good about the cam journal situation.

The fix would need to be more than a sealer. Needs metal repair. Hoping to not lose my best head...

What are we looking at, exactly? Context would be helpful.

In reply to NOHOME:

It was dropped. Corner was flattened and you can see how the journal deformed. The ridges are deformities from the impact.

All that ridge stuff is supposed to be a flat surface that the upper timing plate gasket sits on. With the head messed up it's puking the oil that goes through that journal out externally before it even gets to the cam seal, and I run the risk of mixing oil in my coolant.

There's a good 1/16" or more of bowing at the top which is also preventing that plate from contacting properly.

I just simply need opinions on whether or not it can be fixed. I know what happened and I know there's nothing I can do myself to fix it.

Knurled wrote: What are we looking at, exactly? Context would be helpful.

It's the front of the head around the cam. You see the cam sitting there in the damaged journal, and wrinkles from the metal compacting upon impact.

Can you go back to the shop and tell them since they dropped it, fix it. Of course it might not be the same. Maybe they can do another head for free, seeing as how they screwed this one up. Just asking

Sure, if I had thought to check it over really well when I picked it up a month and a half ago.

Unfortunately it's my word vs. Theirs at this point and there's no way to prove it.

I'm going to chalk it up as a lesson learned, I'm just looking for opinions on if it's worth trying to fix before I bother bringing it for a pro opinion. It's gotta come off either way, just wondering if I should just jump straight into porting another head and give up hope.

I would still try the shop, some of them are honorable and prefer to keep their reputation.

Be nice and ask, rather than demand a resolution.

aussiesmg wrote: I would still try the shop, some of them are honorable and prefer to keep their reputation. Be nice and ask, rather than demand a resolution.

x2 it hurts nothing to let them know what you see

aussiesmg wrote: I would still try the shop, some of them are honorable and prefer to keep their reputation. Be nice and ask, rather than demand a resolution.

this … they (or at least someone there) knows that they dropped it … you might not get anywhere, but it's worth a try

I was kinda disoriented there and didn't pick up on that being the cam journal.

JamesMcD wrote: I was kinda disoriented there and didn't pick up on that being the cam journal.

Ditto. The camera shot is so close it is hard to know what you are looking at.

So oil is leaking past the outside diameter of the cam seal? Can't be. I don't see the cam seal. I see the damage on the one side. Maybe take a picture from a little further back and someone can come up with a fix for you.

No, oil is leaking out of the gasket between the head and the timing plate.

Plate is 10-180, gasket is 10-185. Gasket seals to head, head is all deformed to hell and back. Same gasket unfortunately seals against both oil and coolant.

I can't get pictures of the damage any farther away. There's car in the way.

time to pick up another head.... you might look for another machine shop too......

if the damaged head is that good... you should be able to copy the work into a replacement head - as long as you can work the equipment

btw... I KNOW you knew the right answer and you were hoping someone would come up with a GRM answer that just might work..........

Well... I didnt know if there was voodoo metal working magic that would have saved this thing somehow. Add metal, re-bore, plane the side that the plate sits on, and roll.

Oh well. This sucks. Gonna be another couple weeks before I can drive this thing, and I guess I wasted my last OEM gasket set on this piece of E36 M3.

So the vertical surface of the cylinder head is "beaten in" somewhere under the plate & gasket?

Does the plate and gasket extend over the block or just the head? Because if it's just the head, I'm wondering if the head could be milled on that surface enough to true things up and give a flat surface to seal against again.

The impact was above it, where the valve cover sits it looks like. But yes, that surface is no longer remotely resembling flat, and the cam journal is obviously damaged.

Getting the surface for the plate flat is the easy part. The journal was what I wasnt sure if it could be fixed. Sounds like it can't, sounds like i'm berkeleyed.

Could be some kind of sleeve insert that could be used. I'd talk to the machine shop.

Probably help of the head was pulled and different pictures could be taken.

I'd guess it will cost more to repair the head than it would to find another, unless its weird.

That really looks like heat rather than force. The hole in the first pic is deformed on one side and has a bulge where it looks like the surface began to melt.

Ok, how about this. Take a small sharp punch and punch a series of small marks to gently massage that part of the head back into approximate shape.
See red dots in picture. The idea is not to beat the snot out of it, rather to tap metal back where it belongs. Then take a flat file and work the gasket area flat.
What does concern me is that oil leaks past that journal anyway. Why isn't the oil returning back to the block? Or is there just too much oil coming past there to return to the block? Will this work? Don't know. Anyone else have any ideas?

The journal could be welded up and then re-bored. Or opened up and a bearing added - Did that to an XR100 head when I was a kid - cam had started eating the journal and I couldn't afford a new head, so dad opened it up to the next larger nominal size and then made journal bearings out of oillite bushings that were pinned in place with dowel pins.

But the "right" answer is to just get another head.