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195.6 OHV head cracks |
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Hemirambler
AMC Apprentice Joined: Jan/18/2012 Location: Ohio Status: Offline Points: 197 |
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Posted: Jan/11/2022 at 6:33pm |
As these are getting more and more rare - I'm thinking I should grab a spare IF I see one at the swap meets, but!!! Since they are so often cracked - I wonder is there a common location that I should focus my visual inspection on when buying at a swap meet?
Thanks. Jacin |
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1964 American Convertible (stock)
1964 American Hardtop (Not Stock) |
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purple72Gremlin
AMC Addicted Charter Member Joined: Jul/01/2007 Location: Illinois Status: Offline Points: 16614 |
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I would say you can say you will buy the head AFTER its been pressure tested or magnafluxed.
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Hemirambler
AMC Apprentice Joined: Jan/18/2012 Location: Ohio Status: Offline Points: 197 |
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Ideally sure, but reality says I'll be in BFE somewhere when one pops up. Naturally I wouldn't spend a ton on one without a magnaflux, but I also would save some grief to at least weed out the obvious ones. I mess with early hemi's too - they are notorious to crack between the exhaust valve and spark plug hole. I've avoided a hassle more than once by spotting a crack on a 392 head before ever heading to a machine shop. If I was desperately in need and was paying up that'd be one thing. I'm strictly talking about spur of the moment swap meet type situation. That's why we used to go to them - finding a deal - like the mondelo hemi heads I now have on my dragster - for which I gave the princely sum of 75 bucks for.
Jacin
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1964 American Convertible (stock)
1964 American Hardtop (Not Stock) |
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ramblinrev
Moderator Group Joined: Dec/28/2008 Location: Wisconsin Status: Offline Points: 11543 |
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They typically crack in an exhaust port, and it's not always visible. I have an NOS one I'll never use. I might even be able to deliver it to Ohio sometime this year. |
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74 Hornet Hatchback X twins (since 1977)
62 American Convertible (still worth the $50 I spent in 1973!) AMCRC #513, AMO #384 70 AMX 360 4-speed (since 1981) |
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Hemirambler
AMC Apprentice Joined: Jan/18/2012 Location: Ohio Status: Offline Points: 197 |
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NOS - can't be many of those floating around. What are you looking to get? Poor mans "magnaflux" we used to spray carb cleaner or brake cleaner - it'd evaporate unevenly by a crack even if you couldn't visually see it.
Jacin
Edited by Hemirambler - Jan/11/2022 at 7:24pm |
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1964 American Convertible (stock)
1964 American Hardtop (Not Stock) |
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tomj
AMC Addicted Joined: Jan/27/2010 Location: earth Status: Offline Points: 7553 |
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NOS 195.6 head! Nice.
Metoo -- around the exhaust valves, the hottest part of the head, but up in the water jacket over the combustion chamber. That's what I saw when I sliced up that head with six cracks. From cooling system woes and poor maintenance. |
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1960 Rambler Super two-door wagon, OHV auto
1961 Roadster American, 195.6 OHV, T5 http://www.ramblerLore.com |
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Hemirambler
AMC Apprentice Joined: Jan/18/2012 Location: Ohio Status: Offline Points: 197 |
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tomj, your mention of a "cut up" cracked head made me find it. Wow! That was exactly what I was looking for. Very cool. Thanks for mentioning (and doing) it !
Jacin
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1964 American Convertible (stock)
1964 American Hardtop (Not Stock) |
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wittsend
AMC Nut Joined: Apr/15/2020 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 430 |
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For the longest time someone was selling a bare 196 OHV head that was purported to be NOS (although the box said "remanufactured") on Ebay for I believe $99.99. I believe it was in Moscow, Idaho. Shipping to me in So. Cal. was about $200! I looked and it is no longer there. Sorry to say but stumbling upon a 196 PHV head at a swap meet will be a very rare occurrence (but I wish you the best).
We have problems with cracked heads in my Ford 2.3 World (the Pinto engine). That said we just run them. I have one with a crack right through the exhaust seat. There is no coolant lose and the crack seems to fill up with deposits. Compression is good. There are some higher prices block sealants ($50+) on the market. I have no idea how good they are but if the head were removed, the passages critically cleaned and the sealant filled directly into the head (as opposed to the intended use of adding to the coolant in a running engine) I wonder if the results would be improved?
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'63 American Hardtop
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Hemirambler
AMC Apprentice Joined: Jan/18/2012 Location: Ohio Status: Offline Points: 197 |
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Luck favors the prepared! You'd be surprised what pops up at these meets. Couple years back I found a Flash-o-Matic trans at one - I got it for DIRT!!! I rebuilt it and it's in my convertible now. (Boy was THAT a learning experience) I've run cracked heads at the track (8.53@163) but I've never run them (knowingly) on the street. I do hear what you are saying though. I've seen them fixed by the "pinning" method. Kind of the same thing to a degree. Speaking of swap meets - I was at Hershey one year and found a '66 Hood emblem NEW in the Rambler wrapper - I paid 5 or 10 bucks for it. I was in need of one for my '64. At the time I think they were selling NOS for about $110. SO my buddies said, "so are you gonna sell it?" I said NOPE. "Why not? You can't use it". I said THIS one is gonna PAY for mine when I find it. A year or so later I found one for mine for $175 and I PAID UP. My buddies couldn't believe it. What they forgot was I had my 5 dollar NOS one which I promptly sold for $175 as well. So in my mind when the dust settled - I had a NOS hood emblem and my wallet was only lighter by 5 or 10 bucks. So I feel like THAT'S what I really paid. Jacin
Edited by Hemirambler - Jan/13/2022 at 4:00pm |
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1964 American Convertible (stock)
1964 American Hardtop (Not Stock) |
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farna
Supporter of TheAMCForum Moderator Lost Dealership Project Joined: Jul/08/2007 Location: South Carolina Status: Offline Points: 19689 |
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I ran a cracked 195.6 head on the street for three years as a daily driver. I didn't know it was cracked at the time though. It was my first OHV car. I was stationed in dry Idaho, Mountain Home AFB. So it lost about a quart of coolant every 6-8 weeks, and I never could find the leak! I just figured it was evaporating between the dry climate and engine heat. Had a slight miss at idle that moved, wasn't a single cylinder, and wasn't enough to affect running. I attributed it to a worn distributor, but not bad enough to worry about replacing. Discovered it had been cracked all along when making a cross country trip from Mtn. Home AFB to South Carolina (taking car to my dad's while I went on to Okinawa, Japan for a couple years). I was pulling a utility trailer and driving about 12 hours (on the road 12 -- 14-15 hour days). On the morning of the third day I checked and filled the radiator. Started blowing water out about 15 minutes down the road. "Must have over filled it". Let it cool down and refilled, being careful to leave enough room in the top of the tank this time. Same thing -- 15 minutes and it spat water out! As soon as it got up to engine temp the cracks opened up and leaked compression into the water jacket. Surprisingly it was running just fine though. Let it cool and got it to a small country garage (I was in BFE, Kansas). I was a 25 year old kid at the time. Told the 40+ year old mechanic that I hadn't run it hot, but he was skeptical. Told me he didn't have time to mess with it but if I wanted to use some tools and pull the head he'd look at it. I did. He was as surprised as I was to actually SEE cracks radiating out from the valve seats -- both IIRC, but may have just been exhaust. He told me he thought I'd just run it hot and blew a head gasket or cracked it, but there was no way I could have run it hot enough to do that, it had to have had cracks in it all along and the long hours of driving while pulling the trailer too was just too much for it. I'd driven from Mtn. Home AFB to Denver and to Seattle over the three years I had the car there, but not pulling a trailer or running hard! Had a hard time convincing a local U-Haul rental to take my dad's credit card over the phone (I only had a low limit card) to rent a truck and dolly to finish the trip. Even though the engine got a good dose of water in it I got another head and ran it a good many more years before finally rebuilding. I did pull the pan and check the bearings before putting a rebuilt head on though -- no discernible damage. |
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Frank Swygert
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