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2.9 head recognition


ngzcaz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
78
City
NE Pa.
Vehicle Year
1989
Transmission
Automatic
I recently read somewhere ( perhaps here ) that one could tell a new style head from the old one just by looking at the valve covers. The new ones have a flange pointed up and the old have the flange turned down. Mine is an 89 manufactured 6/89..
Is this correct ? A lot easier than ripping off the cover and looking at the pictures of the new vs old heads.

:bye::icon_confused:
 
Uhhh... No actually.

the "new" valve covers came out at the beginning of 1989.

The new heads didn't come out until later.

There is no guarantee that the heads UNDER those later valvecovers are the "new" heads.

Infact I've owned FOUR '89 engines all with the late covers and NONE have
had the late heads.
I've worked on atleast six other engines with the late covers ONE had
the late heads but that one was a 1992....

The only SURE sign is to pull the alternator bracket off the passenger side
head OR the grounding lug off the back of the drivers side head and look
at the bolt shank.

8mm equals early head
10mm equals late head.

No reading casting numbers, no comparing small details in the shape
of the valve cover seal rail, No digging into the sludge to read a casting
number, etc...

and it's Always possible that someone swapped the later valve covers onto an earlier engine, frankly I've done that on EVERY 2.9 I've owner or worked on.

AD
 
Well.. that was a short lived celebration

:bawling:
 
Well, I'd certainly prefer to have the newer heads if push came to shove, wouldn't you ?

:icon_twisted:
 
don't the later heads also have larger rectangular pads for the rocker shaft mounts instead of oval ones?
 
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