Orlando Cylinder Head Services

There are 3 engine families that have a well-known problem with the intake valve seats falling out which naturally causes internal engine damage. Unfortunately for their Chrysler owners, Chrysler has 2 of them which are the 3.7 and 4.7 SOHC engines as well as the 5.7 Hemi engine. The other engine model belongs to Ford with the late model 1.9 and 2.0 SOHC engines.

As always, we recommend replacing all the intake seats on these engines when they are brought into our shop. And it isn’t because we want the additional money which is only an extra $75 or so, but because odds are that another seat will come out. From our viewpoint it would be better for the customer to pay for the replacement of the additional seats than to chance another failure.

We removed all of the pieces of the broken seat and smoothed out the rough areas to eliminate peaks and possible hot spots. In this case we didn’t recommend welding the damage up because the damage wasn’t severe enough. What you can’t tell from the picture above is that the damaged area is actually recessed .035” below the surface of the cylinder held. So if it had been welded we would then have to set it up in a Bridgeport machine and re-cut the area. In more severe cases we are forced to do it because of the extent of the damage done by the failed intake seat.

It is easier to see the normal recess on the other cylinders from the same engine as shown in the picture shown below. Take note of the undamaged areas and compare them to the picture above where the failed intake seat damaged the head.

As I mentioned earlier, we recommend replacing all the intake seats not just the one that failed to prevent future failures. Here’s what happened to the very same Hemi engine just 4108 miles later after we repaired the above cylinder head the first time and the customer declined having the other 7 seats replaced:

Cylinder # 3 piston--------Cylinder # 5 Piston

In addition to the damaged pistons in cylinder #3 and cylinder #5, one of the cylinders in the block needed to be sleeved due to damage to the cylinder. One of the cylinder heads was not repairable due to the extent of the damage suffered from another intake valve seat. A side note here is that the intake valve seat that we replaced was still intact.

The bottom line after the second intake valve seat failure came to $1900 for a used engine plus installation charges. The additional expense and work was due to the customer wanting to save the additional charges on the repairs when the first intake valve seat failed in the Hemi engine.

It’s bad enough the first time, it’s usually far worse the second time.

As always, call us if you need us.

John

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