Super Dexta Cylinder Head Questions

[johnhutch]

Hi There,

I am restoring my great grandfathers 1962 Fordson Super Dexta, this is my first restoration project. I have bought an Agriline engine overhaul kit for it which I am going to fit, however I need the liners to be professionally pressed and bored into the engine block. I have recently taken the valves out of the head and tried to clean it up as best as I can. To clean the cylinder head I left it in neat steam cleaner detergent for a week and it removed the vast majority of all the gunk, oil and painton it. I found some scratches on the cylinder head surface and I am not sure if they would effect the engine. Also, there are hard deposits of gunk in the water passages and I am not sure hot to clean these out, if they need to be cleaned at all. Finally, I have new valves to put in and I know they need to be seated using grinding paste, I'm just wondering if this is doable myself, or if I should get the same place that is going to fit the liners to fit the new valves too?

I have pictures of the cylinder head, and the rest of the restoration on this flickr set, the pictures of the cylinder head are at the end:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67877592@N ... 618993913/

Here is a video of the tractor running before I started the restoration, (it had to be towed to start).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUGymb02 ... ideo_title

So my questions are:

From the photos, does the cylinder head look like it will be serviceable without machining?

What is the best way to clear out the water passages?

How easy is it to seat new valves?

Thanks for any help and feel free to ask questions!
John

[Bensdexta]

What is the best way to clear out the water passages?

Stefan used citric acid to clear his water jacket, says his was blocked with lime. He filled up the jacket and let it sit for two days:
http://www.fordson-dexta.de/501255938c0 ... index.html
Nice looking Super you got there.

[pjjms]

I think a lot of the heavy deposits in the head could be chipped away with a screw drive. Maybe a light tap to help it along. I think you will be suprised how easy it comes out.

If you are fitting new valves you should get the valve seats cut by your local engine shop. After that a light lap, which is easy to do yourself. Plenty of info on the net about doing that. Just be sure to clean real well and keep the valves in the same place from then on. They can also give advice on the scratches, but from the photos it looks ok.

Fantastic that you have your Grandfathers tractor.

Peter

[russelm]

I cant really comment re the head as mine was cracked so ended up on the scrap pile!

By block was very clogged as well, I used brick acid for a few days in the coolant ways to soften the rust which I then blasted out wuth a pressure washer once the core plugs were all removed. I then re-filled the block with kettle de-scaler and left for a few days and again flushed it all out.

Got loads of crudd out and appeared to be much improved.

[johnhutch]

Thanks for the help guys, I will get the machine shop to look at the head surface and cut the valve seats, I will look into how to lap the valves in, the process looks simple enough from what I've seen so far so I should manage. I'll have a go at chipping the deposits off and if that fails I get hold of some citric acid and steam clean it.

My great grandfather also bought a Super Major, with this Super Dexta in 1962 which we still have on the farm so that could be a future restoration project for me too!