3b overheat damage results and question? (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

You should have contacted Engines Australia for your head vs the Chineseum source. :meh:

NLA from Engines Australia - I checked with them earlier this year.

4wheelauto have heads for pre-1985, I think this means small valves
CruiserParts.net sell the large valve head "cast overseas and machined in usa"
Both are in the $12-1300usd range.
 
The wife has been shopping on Ali express and ali baba for several years now. I have had luck with small items on Ali express. She is considering starting a online drop ship business. Not for landcruiser parts, but other things. I wanted to give it a try to see how it goes. I will post complete information when I get the head. This is however what I am finding/believe to be true. Ali-express tries to make it a fully informative seemless buying experience. Ali-baba you have to contact and communicate/haggle and work a bit. Based on my research so far: 3B heads LTL sea shipment can be bought for less than $200. To buy a single head/sample and have it DHL by air is less than $500. There are sellers on Ebay and Amazon that sell for $650 who likely have found a supplier who is good quality and are doing drop ship. One seller in the US is buying and inspecting/doing correcting machine work and selling for $850........The seller I chose has photo's all around, valve dimensions, correct part number etc.. I'll post pictures and report the experience when I get the head, or I cancel because they can't provide(coronavirus issues?). If it doesn't ship soon I'll be wishing I had bought the US machined Chinese casting I can get for $850 from a US supplier.
 
I finally received the new head for my 3B today. It looks good so far. Water passage holes all match up with the gasket. it appears to be fully machined and the valve seats match up with the correct size valves.
I ordered the head from China on AliExpress. there was copious amounts of information and valve measurements in the add to ensure I got the correct head. Price was $302 for the head plus $200 for express air shipping.
I believe this is head number three for this engine. The head that came off is not an exact match for pictures of the 88 and later 3B head. New style valve cover did work with this head, but the valves were not the correct size. The exhaust valves in the old head were not seated on the valve seats. the valves actually seated on the shoulder of the valve not on the mating surface with the valve protruding outward into the combustion chamber. the guy the cylinder head shop pointed this out to me and said he never seen anything like that before. On the new head from China the correct 3B valves fit perfectly on the valve seat. I will attach some pictures of the two heads here.
The shipping of the head took way too long due to coronavirus and shipping problems in China. Once I get everything bolted up if it seals up and runs fine with no issues I will post links to the source for the head for people who are interested in the future.

IMG_20200305_144430.jpg


IMG_20200305_144416.jpg


IMG_20200305_144406.jpg


IMG_20200305_144354.jpg


IMG_20200305_144338.jpg
 
Got around to begin assembly of the head and lapping the valves, but realized I need to do some valve pocket port work with a die grinder before continuing. The 3b2 larger valves are shrouded on this head casting. perhaps they are using many of the same mold parts as with the older head but the final machine is different. I'm sure I could put it together and bolt it on and it would run fine as it is but I'd be losing some airflow with the valves as shrouded as they are.

IMG_20200309_232831.jpg


IMG_20200309_232825.jpg


IMG_20200309_232818.jpg
 
Installed valves and mounted the head, and came to a stop. I am missing 1Xvalve stem lash cap. This is a small cap on top of the valve stem that gives the rocker a wider surface to rub on and prevents wear to the valve. Its a 75 cent part but it isn't available in the US that I can find. I tried to find a lash cap from another engine that would work, but lash caps for US engines tend to be 11/32 which is a little to small, and 3/8 which is a bit large. There is some debate on whether or not you need lash caps on solid lifter engines, and some of the valvetrain diagrams for 3B do not show them as if some models did not have them.???.. I ordered 2 of the from partsouq.com, but I was really hoping to have the TLC running by the weekend.
 
Got it all back together and running today. Lash cap from Partsouq.com came in on Monday and I got to work. Engine is smoother running than before the overheat. I credit that to correct size and lapped valves. Old head had 2 large valves seating on the shoulder and not on the seat.

Head: I went to Aliexpress for a head for a few different reasons. 1. Seemless no haggle purchase with complete information in the add and DHL shipping. 2. Other than going straight to Alibab and haggling back and forth communication with a language barrier there is no cheaper source for a new head. 3. I wanted to try dealing direct with the Chinese source.
Coronavirus happened and all transport in China stopped. This caused my shipment to take 3 weeks longer than originally expected. Had I known this was going to happen I would have ordered a new cast in China, machined in US head from CruiserParts.net Landcruiser Parts. It would have cost me about $900 with shipping, but I would have had the cruiser running over a month ago.
The only fault I have with the head is that in the casting process they seem to use some of the same parts as for heads with smaller valves. Heads were machined for the correct valves with seats installed, but there was no attempt to smooth the ports and the valves were quite shrouded/restricted by the extra material. I could have bolted it up and it would have ran fine, but I chose to smooth the short side radius and dress up the bowls with a die grinder. Took my 30 minutes. I'm fine with that for the price I paid.
I bolted on the intake manifold dry with a new gasket and no sealant. I had a leak. I unbolted it and coated it all up with RTV and put it back together and now it's sealed tight. Not sure if there is any fault, or imperfect machining in the casting, or maybe I didn't tighten it down even, but it's fine with RTV now.
I paid $302 for the head +$200 for DHL air shipment from Star East Technology in China. Here's the add on Aliexpress- US $314.6 28% OFF|3B New Cylinder Head 11101 58050 11101 58051 For TOYOTA Dyna 200 Coaster LandCruiser Toyo ace 3431cc 3.4L D L4 102MM 1995 99|Cylinder Head| | - AliExpress

Radiator: I bought a new aluminum radiator with electric fan off Ebay for $179 with free shipping. I had to drill the mounting flanges and make a custom mount for the radiator. It is working fine. We'll see how it holds up. Right now I'm running an electric fan and I still have the fan blade on the water pump, but no shroud. If she doesn't start heating up I'm going to keep this configuration. If it heats up I'll figure out how to mount/mod the shroud to work with the non-factory radiator. Electric fan pulls 7 amps and runs off of 1 battery. We'll see if it causes that battery to die sooner.

AC: vintage air builder series super gen II heat, cool, and defrost kit: Builder Series - Vintage Air
Bought compressor, Universal line kit with dryer, and trinary switch off of Amazon. I fabricated a mount for the compressor that sits on the lower right side of the engine. I fabricated a pulley from a tractor supply pulley. She runs true and straight, but I still have to vac and charge the AC.

12V power supply: Bought a 40 amp 24-12V converter for $39 to run the AC unit and other 12V components if desired.

Pictures of the head in previous posts. I'll put some more pics tomorrow.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom