cylinder head corrosion

[gibbon]

when I pulled the head on the starion I found that the head gasket has a couple of holes in it that don't line up with anything. thanks to these holes, coolant (or rather, straight water by the looks of it) has been allowed to sit against the head and has started eating into it. in fact the whole area around it looks a bit corroded and I think I'll condemn this head

I pulled the head off a spare engine and found the same gasket, same corrosion, same problem (but significantly less bad). the corrosion pit is pretty gnarly but isn't anywhere near anything, probably a good 10mm from the gasket fire ring so I think it's OK to run again? just wondering if there's anything I should/could do to prevent it getting any worse. A blob of silicone to close up the hole in the gasket?

 

this is the old head:

[440bbm]

these are common. done in old american stuff for ages. sbc400s have these steam holes that go into the heads andwhen fitting alloy heads ya ditch them and exactly this happens with the gasket sealing agaisnt the head.  It's fine.

 

If the pitting is that bad, I would probably grind them out wiht a dremel, purely so it's clean and not oxidised and fill with devcon. then when you get the head milled it will be mint as.