Rebuilding D17 head costs

Take the head to a machine shop.  Have them check the head over for cracks, measure valve guides and check valve seats.

I would take it to a machine shop to have the head done. They can tell you what it needs. I valve train kit isn't over $150. It probably needs the block side and manifold side milled, the valve cover side might not hurt either. All together maybe $500?

Ditto on taking the head to a reputable shop. They can tank it and thoroughly check it out; pressure test, flatness, spring height, etc. A complete head rebuild (new springs, valves, guides, seats, and machining it should fall into the $400-$600 range.

Edited by GregLawlerMinn - 22 Dec 2016 at 2:54pm

DaveKamp wrote: Well, if it were me, I'd look it over myself, before arbitrarily committing a wallet-figure to it. Like anything else, a guy can dump entirely too much money into something that provides absolutely no benefit to the circumstance. When you pull the springs, see if any feel 'spongy'. If it sat for a long, long time without turning over, several valves open could cause a few springs to be sacked-out, and some may be weak from other circumstances. If the guides are worn, smacking them out and pushing in new isn't rocket science. Putting the pilot of a seat-cutter into the hole and recutting the seats isn't difficult either. Not everybody has a valve grinder, but many guys do... I MADE myself one with an old cordless drill, a mitre fixture, and a find grinding wheel... I didn't use it much before finding a better gadget, but it worked. A sucker-stick and lapping compound... dirt cheap. If they're flat enough, just wiggle the valves, if they're not sloppy loose, lap 'em and make sure the springs are all good. If the manifold face is eroded, run over it with a file to find the high vs. low, then pass across with a belt sander to cut it flat enough for good manifold seal. Recheck with file. These heads ain't rocket science...

How long ago were those prices? I looked at my head before I took it to machine shop. It needed all new valves, springs, guides, seats, freeze plugs, and all surfaces had to milled to make it perfectly flat again.

been better to just go an buy a head or tractor somewear. it's hard to get some of them prices out of a wd-wc-d17

There's two primary issues when dealing with a cylinder head for one of these:

First... how bad is it?

Second... how 'good' does it have to be?

Many people... both consumers, and SHOPS relate cylinder head rebuilding costs to say... carrying in a head from a typical V8.

These ain't.

On a typical V, you've got a critical included angle, where if you have ANY head milling to do, you have to be concerned with a second plane... if you mow the mating surface of the head, you also need to work on the manifold face to make sure the two planes are true to eachother, lest the manifold will NOT mate flat to the head.

On an Allis, if you mill the head, and it isn't true to the manifold plane, it makes NO difference. If you mill the manifold face so that it isn't true, it makes no difference. I had one with the #1 exhaust port so eroded away, that I put it in my Bridgeport with a 3" face mill, shimmed up the front end side by about 0.110", and chewed off a mess of iron... and slapped it all back together. If you look REALLY REALLY REALLY close, you'll notice (mebbie) that the exhaust manifold looks a bit off-kilter to the head, but probably not... and it works great, seals great.

The cylinder head flatness... not nearly as critical as most... the gasket and sleeve protrusion do all the work. If the thing doesn't leak coolant into the pan or out the deck, has a good enough compression seal to not burn the gasket fire rings away, and the valves still get close enough to seal, it's good with minimal work.

Changing the valve guides isn't difficult... you'll need a drift pin to knock them out. Find a piece of steel rod a little smaller in OD than the valve guide OD, chuck it in a cordless drill and hold the end of the rod against your bench grinder, and spin the drill... grind it down 'till there's a small-enough pin space in the end to fit inside the guide (so when you smack it, it doesn't jump out of the guide). Drive the old guides out with that pin and a 4lb hammer. Driving new ones in is same process, but works best if you put the new guides in the freezer for a day, and dip 'em in motor oil before slipping 'em in and smacking 'em home.

Off the top of my head, I don't recall if the Allis guides needed any special attention to height, I don't recall having to worry about it with those (like I did with others), so probably not. When driving new guides in, it's possible to mar the ends a bit such that valves don't want to push back in. If this happens, a light dressing of the smacked end with a tapered hand-reamer will USUALLY solve it, and if they're a bit snug, put a little light lapping compound on an old valve, slip it in just enough to reach the tight area, and work the valve around a little to clear it. I have a very old spring-type ID reamer specifically made for cleaning residue from valve guides (usually on flathead motors), but it does nice job of cleaning up driving burrs.

I've never had to put new seats in any of mine... True industrial engines always have hardened valve seats, so they don't wear much. On mine, once I had the guides in place, I just dropped in good valves and used the sucker-stick and some compound to lap them in.

In most cases, giving a cylinder head just a little manual TLC will bring them well back to happiness without much investment. My SOP for ANY cylinder head, starts when I'm breaking it down... I check for slop 'tween valve and guide, cracked/broken seats, bent stems, and sacked out springs. I clean the casting up really good, check for cracks. If I don't see anything obviously bad, I just clean all the valves, lap them, check springs and reinstall with a good gasket, carefully cleaned bolts and threads, and a known-good torque wrench. At 1800rpm and 8:1cr, they'll perform wonderfully in typical tractor service without much heartache.

For the satisfaction of the pulling crowd, if you're going turbo or supercharging, 10:1CR, nitromethane, 5000rpm, port fuel injection, or breaking in under 10 second ET, then it's worthy of a bit more investment.

Well I guess I went about my build a little differently than most. I wanted everything to be absolutely perfect. I have enough money in this tractor to have bought a couple more....that doesn't mean squat to me. This was my Grandfather's tractor and it was worth every penny.