TDI Cylinder Heads

arazvan2002

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2010
Location
Romania
TDI
Audi A4 B6 1.9TDI AVF quattro
Thank you both for your responses. I returned today the head and got a refund. Now I'm searching another one. The reason I'm searching one is because I have some small cracks from injector hole to the valve seats, piston side. Is not the first I see like this but I'm afraid that the cracks will extend. I'm doing a head gasket job and with it I want to revise the head that will be installed (guides, seats, seals).
 

Franko6

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
May 7, 2005
Location
Sw Missouri
TDI
Jetta, 99, Silver`
arasvan,

Returning an incomplete head is your best choice. We do recommend you clean out any injector hole to inspect for cracks. We have seen cracks that extended to the injector seal area. That is a non-repairable cylinder head.
 

arazvan2002

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2010
Location
Romania
TDI
Audi A4 B6 1.9TDI AVF quattro
I bought another one. I worked 2 hours to clean the soot from the intake runners. It doesn't have cracks but I'm little concerned about the zone where the big seals of the injectors are sealing. I think I have to polish with fine sandpaper to avoid cutting the seals when introducing the injectors. It has some marks because the injector is not sitting perpendicular over the bronze seal, but inclined to the locating bold.
I suppose that is not a good idea to machine those holes because they will be too large and won't seal.
It will be full revised today, seals, guides, seats.
Thanks
 

Franko6

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
May 7, 2005
Location
Sw Missouri
TDI
Jetta, 99, Silver`
Last Friday, one of our customers was looking for injectors and ended up talking with someone else who calibrates injectors. During that conversation, our customer was told that,"...You can't rebuild a TDI cylinder head."

To this date, and without much in the way of slowing down, we have had rebuilt roughly 6,500 cylinder heads in our shop for repair as a stand-alone or as part of a complete engine overhaul.

It seems so long ago now, but early on, we had this same comment from the exact same person, "you can't rebuild TDI cylinder heads..". We responded at that time...
"I guess we will just have to call all these 300 people we've built for and tell them their cylinder heads really aren't running better than ever they did previously."

That was the beginning of a dogfight that apparently is lasting to this day.

For those who know me, have installed my rebuilt heads and blocks and know the craftsmanship we perform, I don't have to explain anything. Our objective it so build for 250,000 miles. We have surpassed our goal many, many times. For the uninitiated, the same tired old line is merely an effort to dissuade purchasing our rebuilt product and diverting people to more expensive and not necessarily better products.

I'm sure most people realize the motivation of someone trying to undermine the quality product we produce. We appreciate the continued support for the work we provide.
 
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TornadoRed

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 3, 2003
Location
West Des Moines (formerly St Paul)
TDI
2003 Jetta TDI wagon, silver; 2003 Jetta TDI wagon, indigo blue; 2003 Golf GL 5-spd, red (PARTED); 2003 Golf GLS 5-spd, indigo blue (SOLD); 2003 Jetta TDI wagon, Candy White (SOLD)
For those who know me, have installed my rebuilt heads and blocks and know the craftsmanship we perform, I don't have to explain anything. Our objective it to build for 250,000 miles.
Frank, my red Golf had about 253k miles on it when I acquired a rebuilt cylinder head from you in January 2008.

At this very moment that Golf is over at Midwest Motorworks in Hudson, where Eric Merker is refreshing that cylinder head with the usual parts; nothing catastrophic happened, just a gradual loss of coolant most likely due to a leaky head gasket. I had the odometer rolled back after the Golf passed 600k miles, but it has an actual 686k miles on it now. So over 430k miles since installing one of your cylinder heads -- which is pretty good I think.
 

Franko6

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
May 7, 2005
Location
Sw Missouri
TDI
Jetta, 99, Silver`
Tornado,

I always remember your car when I went to time it, and we had to mark that flywheel...

You are not the only one who has past the 400k mark after rebuild. What is odd, another guy with similar miles also did courier work! He overheated the head at 440,000 additional miles and when we rebuilt the head, we did minimal repairs. NO valve guides...They were still tighter than OEM. Did an align bore and surfaced head. It's back on the road, adding up more miles.
 

glacier9

Active member
Joined
Feb 1, 2005
Location
so. Wis.
TDI
03 Jetta TDI wagon, (2) '96 Passat TDI wagons, (2) '84 GTI's; '86 RX7; 2010 Ram 2500 Cummins Turbo Diesel
Hi Frank,

A couple of questions for you regarding a cylinder head swap. I'm having to do this because of a broken glow plug. We really need all 4 glow plugs to be working for winter driving, and since I've got a few parts cars/engines, I figured that I could tackle the project. But I think that I got a bit carried away in cleaning the surface of the donor head. (It's a bit wavy and you can see a bit of light under a straight edge.) If I have a local machine shop resurface the head, they said that they'd start with .001, maybe .002, and I'm not sure if they'd have to go much further than that.

Early in this thread, you mentioned: When you remove a head, there will be dents in it from the metal of the head gasket crushing into the cylinder head material. I feel it is best to remove that deformation in order to get a factory-fresh mating surface. After all, you can remove over .020" and still have a good operating head. I usually take off about .002-.004"

And, if that is all that has to be removed to get a non-wavy surface, will a two hole gasket still work? (Both engines had the two hole gasket.)

Also, will it be necessary to do anything with the valve seats? I was hoping to just remove and reinstall all of the bits for the machining. These are both high mileage engines that have never overheated of suffered any internal damage (other than that totally busted and stuck glow plug) and I hope to keep this car running for as long as possible (3 of the 4 B4v's in the stable are still on the road).

Lastly, a head from a '97 AHU is not compatible with a '96 1Z ALH, right?

Thanks for any advice you may wish to give me.

Tom G
 

Franko6

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
May 7, 2005
Location
Sw Missouri
TDI
Jetta, 99, Silver`
Sorry, but I don't track this thread all the time.

We have been remanufacturing cylinder heads, blocks, mostly custom work with performance upgrades in mind... Lots of porting work, upgrade cams, our Molnar rods are the only ones that we know of that are 4340 CrNIMo material for strength above and beyond... and we continue build from mild to wild.

Glacier9, your questions are much too in depth to cover briefly. But quite simply the difference in a 1Z and an AHU are the diameter of the valve stem 1Z= 8mm, AHU= 7mm. Sorry to have undoubtably missed your time element. When we recondition a cylinder head, we leave nothing to chance. Everything gets touched, we always install our custom guides, We always recut the seats, we always seat the valves and get the correct valve projection. Then, we do a lot of things that you may not see, but improve the cylinder head's life expectancy and reliability.

Removal of material to satisfy head gasket surface requirements is NOT the dimension we use. The projection of the exhaust valves and how far the seats have recessed determines the amount of material removed from the head gasket surface. The valves must project below the head gasket surface the correct amount. Then, the valve stems are trimmed to keep from over-compressing the cam followers. There are no step you can 'skip'.

AlanZ,

When it is a question, we do dye-check for cracks. The damage is usually visible, so the use of dye check is not often necessary. The most common crack is between the injector bore and the intake seat. When we see that, our recommendation is to not use that cylinder head for performance work.

There are other places the head will crack and the use of dyes does not reveal them. The other relatively uncommon crack we find is specifically in the #4 cylinder's exhaust for the ALH. There is an issue with the mold mark having porosity from gas bubbles trapped in the pour. This damage requires pressurizing the cylinder and looking for bubbles. Even then, cracks into the water jacket are tricky. The method for finding hairline fractures is about the only time we find the value of using WD-40, as it will make a very small crack stand out. A mist of the penetrating oil will rise from the water.
 

BEW361

Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2021
Location
Chicago Illinois area
TDI
2004 GLS sedan
Hello:

I’m in the market for a cylinder head re-built: 038103373AB. I can furnish a core for swap or buy one you may have. These posts are old so I am hoping you are still providing this great service?
Casey
 

03TDICommuter

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2016
Location
So. Cal
TDI
01' NB, 5spd
Hello:

I’m in the market for a cylinder head re-built: 038103373AB. I can furnish a core for swap or buy one you may have. These posts are old so I am hoping you are still providing this great service?
Casey
Call Frank at the number in his signature in the post right before yours. That's the best way to reach him.
 

Franko6

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
May 7, 2005
Location
Sw Missouri
TDI
Jetta, 99, Silver`
We continue to rebuild. Recently, a few dozen heads showed up. I'm going to be unable to produce any more, probably for the month of May then what is already in the shop.

03tdi is correct. A phone call, email or PM me here.
 

BEW361

Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2021
Location
Chicago Illinois area
TDI
2004 GLS sedan
Good news! I am not in a rush so can wait in line for a few months. I don’t see a number posted in previous message. What might I be doing wrong?
 

Franko6

Vendor , w/Business number
Joined
May 7, 2005
Location
Sw Missouri
TDI
Jetta, 99, Silver`
Recently, some customers are asking me if they HAVE TO BUY my cams through a well-known vendor. The answer is NO. We can sell all of our parts and services directly to customers. Customers that have direct sales also receives our Technical Support and all warranty services that we provide.

I think the other benefits may not be quite as obvious, but we know our product as well. There are some that know more and some that are genius. I try to keep up.
 
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