More New Heads

To All:

Having received an up-check from my latest visit to the Doctor Shop, I
went for a hike today. I hiked all the way from the shop to the
office, then from the office to the shed and then back again, this
time carrying a pair of defunct Volkswagen heads, selected from a pile
of such heads that has been allowed to accumulate in said shed.

This particular pair of heads is going into the smelter, to become
bright, shiny ingots of VW Head Alloy, whatever that happens to be.
Later on in this story, the ingots will be re-melted and cast into
FINS, and into Exhaust Ports.

Why? Well, follow me through on this because it gets sorta wacky.

In the Saga of the Fat Finned Heads I mentioned that the best stuff,
with regard to welding new fins onto existing heads, proved to be
stock fins, cut from damaged heads. The only flaw with this method
( that is, increasing the fin-area of existing heads by TIG'ging on
additional fin-area ) was the horrible lack of experience on the part
of the weldor, which was me. So what if my skills have improved
slightly during the passed forty-odd years? Ah ha! (you sez) Ah
ha! indeed.

So I'm going to try it again. But with a slight variation. I'm going
to first CAST fins of the required shape, giving them a nice little
Christmas Tree base like a turbine-blade, so I'll have a fin with a
more suitable SHAPE at the point of attachment. (Actually, it's not
an exact copy of a turbine-blade, but I think I'll keep the exact
shape under my hat for the moment.)

And there's another little trick or two, too. As in, also.

See that exhaust stack? On the VW heads the stacks are on the ENDS.
This makes it impossible to use that area for fins, as was done with
the Porsche engines. So there I am with a crucible of molten head-
stuff in my massively-gloved hands, casting flasks littering the area
in back of the shop...

There's at least two ways to MOVE the exhaust stacks on VW heads. I
am going to try grinding away the existing exhaust stack. I'm then
going to try CASTING a new exhaust stack. But not the whole think,
only the ROOF of the exhaust stack. I'm then going to WELD the newly
cast room onto the head in such a manner as to leave virtually the
entire area at the ends of the VW heads available for NEW FINS.

This method is far from being a slam-dunk. The method involves a lot
of tricky little procedures. But none of them are especially
DIFFICULT. While it involves some casting, the pieces to be cast are
all 'single-sided;' there are no cores to worry about. That means
virtually ANY METHOD of casting should yield acceptable results.

The main road-block is the need to be able to TIG weld. TIG is not
difficult to learn, the 'road-block' is fiscal -- even the cheapest
TIG'er is going to set you back about $1500. Which means you've got
to start going to Chapter meetings again, standing up and waving your
needs in the air.

-R.S.Hoover

PS -- I'll post some drawings on my blog so you can get some idea as
to what I'm talking about.