Volks,

Well, I finally got started on the new heads (for 1600 DP).  They,d been sitting 
awhile on a shelf at a vw repair shop before I rescued them.  
Fortunatey they had a coating of corrosion inhibiter. Unfortunately, 
there were a few nicks inside the combustion chamber and a bare 
corroded spot on the side of one of the chamber walls.  I've heeded 
Bob (from account temps) Hoover's advice and polished the inside of 
the heads (i.e., the combustion chamber).  What follows is the means 
by which I accomplished this task.  All told it took me about 3 and 
1/2 hours.

Cleaned the chambers with Gunk engine cleaning solution to remove the 
red-brown coating.  Noticed on one of the heads, mild corrosion had 
set in against the wall near one of the exhaust valves.  I used a 
die-makers' riffler file. (The type with ends curved  on each end like your 
extended thumb during a hitch-hiking jaunt) to bring down the relief 
of the nicks inside the chamber to somewhere flush with the chamber 
walls.  This tool is an excellent hand tool and I'd recommend having 
one in ones' arsenal of tools.  I noticed differences in the quality 
of the aluminum casting between the two heads.  One had a couple of 
small cavities (near or less than a cubic mm in volume) due to the 
casting process itself.  The chambers are inherently pitted and 
polishing them removes the discrepancies between the two heads as 
well as the other benefits outlined in Bob's sermon on this very 
subject.
    The polishing begins with the use of a small electrical hand 
rotor (I used a Dremel tool) fitted with a flexable abrasive finisher 
-Cratex, extra fine.  I used two geometries, a small cylinder type 
(0.5 cm -1 cm diameter by 3 cm long) or an extra fine disc (2.5 cm 
diameter).  These ware readily on use, and conform nicely to the 
crevices around the spare plug tap and the interface between the 
valve seats and the chamber walls.  Using the riffler file, I 
honed down any relief that was the result of tapping out the spark 
plug threads.  Continue polishing until time and satisfaction meet a 
a happy intersection (You decide).  As Bob pointed out, you can 
polish until .... After reaching this nirvana, chased the Dremel 
polishing by hand buffing the polishings using Crokus cloth (a very 
very fine carborundum-based cloth #J135E) to smooth out the polishing 
traces on the chamber walls.  Keep the Dremel tool handy during this 
procedure as you may want to revist areas that aren't quite up to 
spec. 

Next step, cc'ing the combustion chamber.  (I'll be doing this on 
friday as I've got to leave for NY)  :^)  
 
christian f krahforst 
UMass/Boston
7039ckrah@umbsky.cc.umb.edu

'65 Deluxe