The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk 216 / 235 Head Restoration

This is my first post to the site and I have some mechanical questions for my 39 Chevy. I am "in the knows enough to be dangerous" category when it comes to precision work on the engine. Therefore, I could use any and all help!

For reasons yet unknown, I decided to drive my truck for a few miles on the local freeway. Long story short, I managed to bend two push rods and knock a third completely out of position. I was able to do a temp repair to the rods to get the engine running. I suspect I've bent some valves as well since it is missing on several cylinders.

Thanks to research on this site I have learned that the engine in the truck is a 1948 235 with a 1953 216 head. It has run very well since the mid 90's in that configuration. Long ago I disposed of the block the truck came with, but kept the head, which is a 41-48 216 / 235 head. Being in the Arizona desert, it has little rust and is mostly filled with dust. After inspection, it looks to be in great condition with some cleanup.

Here are my questions. Would it be better to take the '53 head, replace the valves and put it back on the truck, or clean up and use what appears to be the correct 1948 head for the block? I like the idea of a matching head and block, but also understand that if has been working well why mess with it.

In either scenario, how difficult is it to disassemble the head and replace parts? If I use the '48 head, what would be the best recommendation for cleaning it?

Sorry for the wordy post. I have been doing lots of research on line and I have found little information on this topic. I know that this is probably a very basic question to most of you, but I have been lucky in not having to do much mechanical work to this truck. Any and all posts to my personal email, or to the forum would be most welcome. Thanks!

Okay, it appears that I have posted this in the wrong section! Sorry, newbie mistake. I will post this over in the correct section.

Head work isn't really difficult. It does, however, require some special tools or the time of a machine shop.

If you have a correct 1948 head all ready to go, you can take it apart and clean it to see what you got. Label all the parts as to their position. Take the valves out and mark which cylinder they were in. You can clean the head either with a parts washer or by soaking it in a big container of red devil lye (wear gloves) for a week or two. It should come out brand spanking clean. Once it is clean take a machinist's straight edge and check it for warpage, or take it to a machine shop and have them do it. Use a dial gauge and check all the valve guides for runout. If the valve guides are bad you will want to have new guides and valve seats installed. Also check for cracks. If there are no cracks and the valve guides are ok put new stem seals in and put it back together. Lap each valve/seat combo until the seat has a nice even matte gray color.

Then put it all back together and fire it up.

One thing that you may notice is that the 1948 head has smaller spark plug bores. These spark plugs are 10mm and are harder to find, but they work just fine. I had a '50 block with a '47 head on it in my truck and it ran good before I killed a rod bearing.