pictures

[Tom Alessi]

The pictures in the photo albums are great. I'd love to see any good shots of the underside of the head and any pictures relating to valve adjustments.
Thanks,
Tom

[Kelly]

Here are a few pictures of the head off my late model A4.

The first shows the underside after cleaning, the second shows the clean and anti-rust prepped top side of the head and the last is the underside before cleaning.

Kelly

[Tom Alessi]

Thanks loads. Great shots. Information is power. If you have any of the valves that would be great as well.
Tom

[duncan59]

clean head job

Thanks for posting your pics.... I'm about to take off my own head and replace the gasket. I was wondering what you did exactly to "clean and anti-rust prep" the head on both sides? I'm a total novice at motor maintenance and I want to get it right.
Thanks again,
Duncan

[Kelly]

Hello Duncan,

Either this should reassure you in your work or you should run from my advice like from the plague, but I'm a total novice, too.

Regardless, once the head was off the block, the gasket material you see sticking to the block (and head as well) was like cement. I carefully removed it using the sharp edge of a wood chisel. If you do this, be very careful not to gouge the surfaces. Once finished, I could see small circular patterns in the metal from earlier machining and the surface was very clean. I did not touch the cylinders and made sure no foreign material dropped into the cylinder bores (I filled them with wadded up rags during my work).

Neither the top of the block nor the bottom of the head received any sort of paint or rust treatment (internal surfaces)- just cleaning. The top of the head and outside surfaces were all stripped with a wire brush attached to my grinder. Then, once de-greased with acetone, I applied one coat of rust inhibiter (the type that turns existing rust black- I live in France so the brand here was Frameto). This was followed by one coat of rust resistant paint (special spray-can formulation for motors sold at the local equivalent of West Marine) and two to three coats of motor paint (same brand as the previous).

Picture 1) block fresh from head removal
Picture 2) block after cleaning with the chisel
Picture 3) head re-installed and final coat of paint applied

Hope this helps,
Kelly

P.S. I did not paint any of the surfaces in contact with gaskets based on advice from the SailNet A4 list.