I found a set of 416 to put on my 327 for 35 dollars. Is it cost effective to have them rebuilt, or should I keep on looking??

 

Anyone? Basically I am looking to see what is involved in a head rebuild and what it should cost on the average. My other choice so far is a set of 441s that a guy is pulling beecause he is upgrading. He wants 150 for those

 

Depends on what they need.

Guides?
Valve job
Springs/seals/set up springs
Surfacing?

Can eat up a whole lotta money real quick and you still have an old head.
You may lose compression with the older iron heads over the 416s

 

Right now I have 882s with I believe small cracks. ( a lot of pressure in cooling system) what do you think a total rebuild would run??

 

Why are you SO DETERMINED to buy somebody else's junk off of Craigslist? Forget about Craigslist for about 2 seconds, and concentrate on jchausee instead.

Only way those heads are a deal, is if their cost is less than the core charge for a set down at yerlocal parts store. IOW, you buy the heads for $35, turn them in as cores, and pick up a ready-to-run set. If the core charge is $50, you just made $15 through arbitrage; if the core charge is $25, you just lost $10 the same way. HOW MUCH IS THE CORE CHARGE? Go find that out before doing anything. That's the ONLY WAY you'll know whether the CL junk is a "deal" for jchausee right here right now in this particular situation, or not.

Odds are, it will cost the absolute least, to buy a set of already ready heads, than to take a set of cores to them and say "build these". First, the way they rebuild heads in a shop is, they take a stack of about 50 of them or whatever, tear em ALL down, put ALL the valves in a basket of valves, ALL the retainers in a basket of retainers, and so on; and proceed to mass-produce prepare 50 heads' worth of everything. They throw away all the bad stuff as they come to it. Then when all the retainers are clean, all the valves are ground, all the castings are bead-blasted and worked, etc., they reach into the valve basket and pull out 8; into the retainer basket and pull out 8; into the casting pile and pull out one; and so on, and assemble them. When they get to the end, if they're 2 castings and 18 valves and 12 retainers and whatever else short of 50 heads, they build however many good castings they have, and replace however many small parts they have to, to make up that many complete heads.

OTOH, if you take them a pr of heads and want THOSE HEADS worked, they have to take THOSE 16 valves, THOSE 2 castings, THOSE 16 retainers, etc., and tag them and keep them separate, and NON-mass-produce them; they have to keep records, and tell you stuff like "this valve is too far gone to re-use, do you want us to replace it" and stop down and pack up your stuff on the shelf and wait for you to get back to them. WHICH WAY DO YOU THINK COSTS THE SHOP LESS? Which way do you think therefore that it will cost less for jchausee to buy his heads?

Forget CL. Start talking to your local parts store instead.

It costs the same to work any set of heads, if their condition is equal. You could spend $250 or whatever on a set of heads that will IMPROVE your motor, or if they were good, you could spend THE SAME $250 and keep the trash you have now. BUT - your 882s are fornicated BAD, meaning, it will cost WAY WAY WAY more to fix them, than to just buy a set of good ones outright. Which path is the more intelligent choice?

Forget the 882s. Throw them in the trash; they are garbage. Forget CL. It is a waste of money on somebody else's garbage. Buy a set of ready-to-run 416 castings and move on.

 

Sofa . I understsand what you are saying. My issue is that I am limited on funds. If I can get a set at the parts store for 250 then that is the way I will go. But 250 is about my max budget. I plan on trashing my 882s . That is why I am looking for different heads.

 

We're ALL limited on funds. That's the way of the world. Some of us are just more limited at any given moment than others.

That's what I'm trying to help you with: get straight to a good set of heads, that makes your car BETTER and causes you NO TROUBLE in the foreseeable future, for the least amount of $$$. That part about "no trouble" CANNOT be overemphasized. You DO NOT want to go through all the work and expense of doing this, crank the car up, and discover that you got boned, and you're right back where you are now except your wallet is A WHOLE BUNCH lighter.

So far you have proposed 2 paths to that goal, neither of which is right: either repairing cracked garbage and THEN spending the necessary $250ish to rebuild them AFTER repairing their cracks; or, buying somebody's junk off of CL and (a) at worst, taking the risk that THEY'RE in need of $$$$ repair such as for cracks and/or are otherwise worthless, or (b) best-case, spending more buying those than the core charge would be to just walk out of the machine shop with a ready-to-run pair in your pocket. Neither of those plans is good.

Cheeeepest, straightest, lowest-risk path available to you is, go to the store and buy a pair of rebuilt 416s. Turn your 882s in as cores if they'll take them. There is no cheeeeeper option that has any possibility of a good outcome. CL is just a diversion, a shiny thing along the way to distract you. Focus. Ignore it.

Something that can be difficult to understand for somebody that hasn't done this a bunch of times, is that the cores - the big heavy things that need a "rebuild" - are THE CHEEEEPEST part of a repair. That's the WRONG place to try to save $$$$. Concentrating your $$$$-saving efforts there is 100% ABSOLUTELY POSTIVELY IRON-CLAD GUARANTEED to bite you in the butt, one way or another. Widen your focus a little bit, take in the BIG picture, it becomes much clearer. Pay what it takes to get good cores, or to dodge having to worry about them at all; the 2% or however little that adds to the total project cost, pays for itself MANY times over, over the life of the finished product.

Keep in mind, you'll be buying a head gasket set, various "might as well"s such as hoses, thermostat, filters, fluids, and whatnot, much of which you'll have to buy AGAIN if it doesn't go right the first time; along with any parts you find that are damaged or otherwise unuseable, like rockers or push rods. Keep in mind also, that if you cheeeeep out too much on heads, you WILL find yourself doing this job AGAIN, and more than likely, either the car will never work right at all in the first place, or you'll be back at the WORST POSSIBLE moment; and there's NO WAY it'll be cheeeeeper to do it half-a$$ed once and THEN go back and do it right, than to do it right the first time and just be over it.

 

Good advice from sofa, and yes were all strapped and car broke some more than others so we "get" your circumstance

If you want a good example of someone doing it over because they bought some low miles used "hopped upnew everything heads" do thread search on me. Few hbundred more coulda had new
If 250 is all you got then shop around and make your best judgement call. JUst be careful and ask questions

 

Sofakingdom has solid advice for your situation. The last time I was at the machine shop they had a stack of 305 heads ready to go that I noticed. And this is a small town shop in the middle of the woods (my people!).

Going in with a mystery head is not a good idea if you are trying to save money. Your machinist probably charges by the hour regardless of the job so the more problems the more your bill. The cost will be almost all labor unless you buy some serious hardware. You'll spend $200-$300 in labor easy for a decent job. If you some how get a diamond in the rough you may get out the door under $200, but don't start daydreaming here.

If you want my pick up the phone and call your local machinist and tell them what you want to do. They probably have a pile of heads waiting for you.

 

Doom and sofa. I did what you said. Called a machine shop. Have 416 for 350 or 250 with core. So I can buy ones of CL for 35 and pay be in some from machine shop for 285. I am not set on 416s but from what I have been told on TGO , they would be the best " budget" heads for my 327?? Any otherf head ideas would also be welcome.