At 11:04 PM 12/1/96 -0600, ERIC ZENO wrote:
>
>On Sun, 1 Dec 1996, Larry Stichweh wrote:
>(snip)
>> This is a tale of two heads ;-).
>> The heads arrived but the shop owner was concerned that there may be 
>> some cracks in the heads.  He said the area between the valves or near 
>> the plugs was where he has found them before.  Cracks in this area are 
>> an early step to dropping a valve into the cylinder,  very bad 
>> happening.  Under a magnifier there was one suspicious area between two 
>> of the valves but it was not obvious.
>> 
>(snip)
>> 
>> Larry
>
>   In,..,.,.. I think ??, It was the Bentley manual It state that small 
>   cracks in this area are useable!
>
I have used heads, both in air cooled and water cooled VWs (Rabbit variety)
with as much as 2mm worth of crack between the valve seats as you described.
A service bulletin from VW states the proper way to check this is to
reinstall the head, fully warm up the engine, and check compression. Kind of
a severe test, who wants to reinstall a bad head. If it ran well before you
took it apart, leaking coolant or was OK until the haed gasket went. Use the
head.
Greetings from Michigan's Upper Peninsula
Jeff & Jean-Marie Diebolt
jdiebolt@up.net