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Back yard ghetto cylinder head resurface


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How many angels DO fit on the head of a pin?

 

Translation: I imagine that the surface variation of ANYTHING that you attach to the surfacing surface will have a greater variation than the surface's flatness spec. The particles on the emery cloth, not to mention the backing itself, almost certainly has a greater variation.

 

As someone said, the lapping process should tend to even things out anyways...

It is true we're not building a lense for a telescope. I'm just talking about a glob or a hump that you could do without. Now if you had a ridge across the middle of the stone, over lapping sandpaper or a line of glue, you never would get the head flat.

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Just a late note to this thread, watch the surface finish, you don’t want a polished surface on a cylinder head (or any other surface that holds a gasket), you need a little roughness to hold the gasket. Emulating OEM should work fine.

 

BTW, this idea isn’t really “backyard”, lapping parts for fit or finish is standard procedure in any machine shop. I personally have been using the “glass plate” surface plate as long as I’ve been working on stuff, I learned it from my daddy. :)

 

And to take it a step further, I regularly use a hard rubber sanding block or long board (bodyshop type) to clean, prep and flatten surfaces that I can’t take to the surface plate.

 

Gary

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  • 6 years later...

The method with plate glass on heads works well.

I use the Norton oxide paper (just one sheet, per head) in my ghetto yard :)

 

Stage1 shows how bad the surface variations were between the chambers:

(plate glass also shown, but 1/4" is minimum you want to go, and must check glass for flatness before proceeding)

notflat.jpg

 

Stage 2 shows most of the imperfections gone:

flat2.jpg

 

Stage 3 and 4 came afterwards...

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