mk1-forum.net

I have a cylinder head casting unused/ unfinnished (no seats cut no guides), it appears to be an AEG163 to all intents and purposes , colour , all shapes around the head, but has the valve centers further apart by 1mm, and noticiably more metal between the valves (the ports measure the same dia as standard 163) , the casting number starts AEG30* - the the last number has been drilled through for a pushrod hole. anyone else heard or seen one ? dare i say Downton redesign to stop cracking ?

heres some pics

number:

That blaze colour paint is a bit of a clue, Vortz had inroads to the foundries and there colour in the rocker
chest was this, also it looks like there first combustion depth milling operation has been done as well, I think thats where I would be looking as the culprits.

Is it drilled and tapped to take a heater tap ?

Looks like an AEG 309 which is a late formula Junior head

vortz racer wrote:That blaze colour paint is a bit of a clue, Vortz had inroads to the foundries and there colour in the rocker
chest was this, also it looks like there first combustion depth milling operation has been done as well, I think thats where I would be looking as the culprits.

isnt the blue colour just indicative of a head that wasnt fitted on a production car, rather it was sat on the shelf?

Yes, which is it, blaze on blue, or blue on blaze, cant really make it out from pic.

BMC used various colours as primers on engine castings , the most common is red oxide but also yellow and blue .

I think is more of an age thing than for any specific part identification .

learnt a bit last night, apparently the foundries were asked to colour code the eching paint on the raw castings
to identify quickly which casting was which before going to the various machining stations so as to be no mistakes and workers didn't need to look for casting numbers so speeded up the process. Which and what would be interesting. Apparently, there are crossover colours but they are at a different time line, this was done on blocks as well.
Not that interesting really, but one head had no etch and that was the air injected 1275 sprite/midget head. thats the first one how about the rest.

vortz racer wrote:learnt a bit last night, apparently the foundries were asked to colour code the eching paint on the raw castings

maybe they assumed brummies couldnt read


bmc did the same with the cranks for the sizes i think, so it was probably quicker just to pick a 'white' crank, rather than having to actually measure anything.

Had a lengthy conversation with Nick from Vortz racing , after describing it to him , He does think its one of his 'specials' - he would have 5 heads cast at a time with different spacing and core sections to make them more suitable for inclining and fitting the biggest valves possible. Really nice guy extremely knowledgeable he did say he recorded everything and can probably tell me where /when it was cast and what specifically he was aiming to do with that particular batch , Amazing!

And I can confirm the 12g 1316 america /smog head has no paint under the rocker cover because i have a new unused one also !

That said , it does seem to also fall into a similar description of an XSP 1071 /1095cc formula junior head which has a casting number of AEG305 circa 1964

251 ENG wrote:BMC used various colours as primers on engine castings , the most common is red oxide but also yellow and blue .

I think is more of an age thing than for any specific part identification .

I've seen that blue on all kinds of different castings from 1071 blocks to 940 heads so maybe was just an age thing ?

Very interesting thread this!

I hope it develops further.

M

From the bits I have seen

Yellow on early 1071 blocks and 185 heads

Blue on later 1071 blocks and 163 heads and some morris minor blocks and heads

Red oxide on 1275 s blocks , but also 850 , 997 , 998

Light blue on A series 1300 blocks and 940 heads

Red on A+ 1300

Yellow on A+ 998

It may have been something that only Morris engine,s did as they made such a wide selection of engines including all the special stuff

guru_1071 wrote:

vortz racer wrote:learnt a bit last night, apparently the foundries were asked to colour code the eching paint on the raw castings

maybe they assumed brummies couldnt read


bmc did the same with the cranks for the sizes i think, so it was probably quicker just to pick a 'white' crank, rather than having to actually measure anything.

well its much esier and faster just to walk up to the stock room and pick up a yellow head over looking through all the numbers and picking out one by numbers just helps production move quicker

Come on chaps.....which book is it?

One of the mini bibles talks about the blue, yellow, etc heads. Is it Vizard? Probably not Trickey....ummm, probably Vizard. One of them (out of 3 colours) was the later one with the smaller exhaust valves.

251 ENG wrote:From the bits I have seen

Yellow on early 1071 blocks and 185 heads

Blue on later 1071 blocks and 163 heads and some morris minor blocks and heads

Red oxide on 1275 s blocks , but also 850 , 997 , 998

Light blue on A series 1300 blocks and 940 heads

Red on A+ 1300

Yellow on A+ 998

It may have been something that only Morris engine,s did as they made such a wide selection of engines including all the special stuff

Didn't Downton Engineering also use a particular paint colour on their heads also...?

Didn't Downton Engineering also use a particular paint colour on their heads also...?

No they didn't.

Yes they did .

Every shade of BMC engine green