Machine shop nightmares...HELP!

[63Rancher]

And I had some questions about, well everything. I think they botched everything, but since this is the first motor I have built I may be completely off base. So I'm going to describe what I think is wrong with them, and I would like to know if I need to start over or not.

Block - I asked them to clean the mating surface for the head and to hone the cylinders because the cross hatching was almost all gone. I get the motor back and the ran a ball hone through them I think, and nows theres a ridge at the top of five of the cylinders when there wasn't any before. Also there is a small gouge in one of the cylinders that wasn't there before and I am afraid it will damage my piston/rings or cause excessive blow by. They cleaned a lot more of the block than I anticipated, but the one spot I wanted cleaned up looked more shiny and still had all the dark spots from the head gasket.

Head - The head I got back about a week ago, but sent back immediately since I felt it wasn't even close to complete. The mating surfaces were cleaned well, but the valve guides were missing the sleeves and the valves themselves had no seats. The only other motor I've built had sleeves, and when I took it back and said they were missing the guy looked at me like I was crazy and said "oh, you want sleeves too?" It looked the guide had one helical cut in it, and that was it. The seats looked like someone had taken a hogging bit or something to clean them out, as the had a very rough appearance. The valve fit, but most of it protruded into the cylinder which the stock ones did not (the new ones are slightly over sized). I asked about hardened seats, which I believe you can put in those heads, and was told that you can't use those with these heads.

So am I crazy, or is this unacceptable. I work at a auto shop, and we do motor work, but my boss looked at them and didn't notice anything until I said something about it to him. He thinks I'm right in wanting a second opinion about the work, and that I need to find another machine shop. I think this may just be a result of inexperience with these motors, but it's a big machine shop that does a lot of work.

 

[MustangSix]

I'm really having a tough time envisioning what you have going on. I think we need to get some of the terminology correct to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

Decking the block is the process where they physically shave the top of the block to make it straight and true. Any other scrubbing, wire brushing, or scraping will just clean the surface and may leave dark or light spots.

Honing will put a cross hatch into a bore. It will not remove a ridge. A ridge naturally develops as the rings wear into the bore and can only be removed by cutting it out with a ridge reamer or by boring the cylinder. Honing then follows.

By sleeves you must be talking about valve seals. Yes, these engines must have them or they will smoke - a lot.

But you must have gotten the head back unassembled? No seats? Not possible. Hardened seats are possible, but normally only on the exhaust. In any case, it would be tough to see a valve seat with the valve and spring assembled.

Pictures of what you have would help a lot.

As far as getting this work corrected there are two possibilities. Either your machinist is completely incompetent or you are not describing your situation accurately. If he is truly an idiot, then you don't want him to even attempt to fix anything. Chalk it up to experience and never go back to him.

OTOH, if it's simply a matter of you not describing what you want to him, maybe you'll be able to get some advice here and go back armed with the correct words and descriptions.

Try to get some photos posted and we'll try to help.

 

[63Rancher]

I'm not talking about decking the block, I just had the top surface cleaned up, he said he has a machine that does it. As for the ridges, I know that will occur with time but I swear they were not as pronounced as before he worked on it. The block also only has them on 5 cylinders. I'll take some pics today when I go into work and post them here.

 

[MustangSix]

I just can't imagine how one would go about deliberately creating a ridge in a bore.

Number One usually has the most pronounced ridge, Number Six the least. Could be the ridges were there but not noticeable until the honing, maybe little to none at Six. So when he honed it all of them kind of popped out at you.

I guess he must have wire brushed the deck or hit it with a flap wheel. It'll come clean, but it won't necessarily be true and flat.

Can you better describe the head situation. Still not understanding that part.

And in any case, right or wrong, I don't think you're going to get any kind of satisfaction from that machinist. I'd look for another.

 

[aribert]

I agree with everything MustangSix said. It sounds like you are doing a quick and dirty re-ring. I am questioning why you would take a block to a machine shop and only have them hone it? For honing, with a drill motor you could do that yourself and paying a machine shop to remove a bit of gasket material is generaly speaking using the wrong skill set (you are paying for skilled labor to scrape a gasket - even if the lowliest shop helper did the job you are still paying the shop rate). I suggest you surf the web for pictures of engines undergoing re-machining so that you understand both the terminology and sort of what the result should look like.

BTW,the gouge you mentioned - I suspect that it was there previously but that it was not apparent until the cylinder was honed and suddenly (visually) it popped out at you. FWIW, I had a little boo boo on my winter car where I ignored a rattle (broken valve spring) for 25K miles until the keeper came loose and the valve dropped, ventilated the piston in two places and then got imbedded in the cylinder head. The bore that the ventilated piston rode in had 2 sets of 3 grooves (when the valve head punctured the piston it also cracked the top of the piston across (and broke the rings). I agressively honed this one cylinder (the grooves were still deep enough to snag a finger nail after honing) and lightly honed the others and slipped in a new piston and replaced the head and my oil consumption afterwards is better than 2000 miles / qt. My point is don't sweat a groove in a bore.