By far, the spray powder cast iron welding method is the best! I had a 429 cj cylinder head that dropped an exhaust valve, and succeeded in removing the roof of the combustion chamber! I found a company in Long Island, NY, [forget their name now] that advertised this type of welding, and showed pics of their repairs, before and after. I shipped my head to them, and they examined it, called me with an estimate, and I had them repair it. They replaced the lost casting, and built up the material to cut in the seat. Long story short, the head was less than .0015" warpage from heating process- I simply lapped in the new valve, assembled the head, and bolted it on! The combustion chamber was finished just like the other three! Honestly, without looking really close, you couldn't tell which chamber had been repaired! It ran fine for as long as I owned it-never any trouble!
Some of you guys may know of the shop in Long island, they even welded 2 b.b. chevies together, block to block and crank to crank [no crank couplers] to get around the rules of "one engine" for the tractor/truck pullers! This had to have been at least 10 years ago, so I figure the technique is much better refined by now! Dean
