head warped?

[Tref_LXI]

ok guys my car has been overheating, because i have oil mixed with antifreeze. I took off my head to see if its warped, but it looks fine. I heard that it can still leak oil into the antifreeze if its a tiny bit warped. The car overheats because it has burned through the antifreeze reserve tank and comes out after about 5 minutes of driving. So how much will a valve job cost to have my head fixed and all my valves brought to brand new condition if they are messed up?

[NXRacer]

your valves wont be bad, the head will be warped (which is why you have oil in your antifrieeze). A shop will be able to tell you how bad its warped and how much it'll cost to have it shaved. If its bad, then you may have to have the block shaved as well.

The cool thing about the a20x motor is that they are dirt cheap and a lot of times its cheaper to get a whole new motor......

[danronian]

Did you make sure you just didn't have a blown headgasket before jumping to the conclusion of having a warped head? It being blown could just be due to the fact of a old and corroded away head gasket from dirty rusty coolant in the engine for years.

[NXRacer]

that is true, but depending on how bad the car has overheated in the past, there is a good chance of the head warping.

[Tref_LXI]

it has overheated about 6 times, but the gasket was fine

[RobT5580]

Sounds like what my friend has gone through with his JDM H22 and he assumed it was the headgasket and changed that and still the same thing. So he bought a spare head and gave it to a machine shop to check it out and a mild port and polish etc. So he should get it back this week so he should find out soon if that was his problem but it certainly sounds like it.

[danronian]

It could also be a crack. There was a crack on my chevelle's head that was so small that it could only be seen with magnaflux.

But if the gasket was fine, how could oil be mixed in with the coolant if it was sealed? If the gasket was find it can't be the head, it must be something else. You would see some sign of coolant on the gasket, or at least where the gasket did not seal onto the head and block to be sure that it is warped. I really dont think there is any way the head can be warped and the gasket still seat.

[Tref_LXI]

the gasket could have moved up in the place that the head was warped, or there is a crack in the block i guess. I looked on the sides, top and bottom, and checked inside of the cylinders for cracks, but can't find any. What else could this all be?? I am about to take my head down to a machine shop so that it can be shaved.

[danronian]

Getting it shaved wouldn't help if there is a crack in the head though. Maybe you should just get it magnafluxed to be sure there is a crack. But if the machine shop can tell you it is warped by looking at it, go for the shaving.

[McNick]

My previous head was cracked also. That was 2 or 3 very very thin cracks on camshaft side. This cracks links the cooling chanals and camshaft undecover volume. It was defined by signs of collant (looks like salt tracks) on head surface under camshaft. After cleaning this tracks by finger I lost the possibility to find this cracks easy because no difference between regular surface and cleaned cracks there.