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No Bob, it's impossible to crack a cylinder head from over enthusiastic bead
blasting. Many of the older heads we strip off Jeep or GMC engines suffer
from similar cracks and, provided you aren't blowing head gaskets or finding
water in the oil, the existing head will probably go on fine for some time
to come. The pursuit of total originality seems odd to me in this case since
towards the end of the war, the allies had German prisoners of war working
in field workshops (and I use the word field advisedly) to strip and rebuild
vehicles of many types including Jeeps. It is totally
unrealistic to imagine that they put all the Ford Jeeps in one field and
all the Willys in another or that they bothered to check that the
replacement parts for the Fords all had little 'F's embossed on them as they
came out of the crates. We have had any number of original Jeeps through
our hands with a mixture of Ford and Willys parts on them. I've heard it
said that in the States during the war, when there were production
shortages, Ford or Willys would borrow parts from each other or call up
parts from each others outside suppliers. So, many original Jeeps finished
their war service in this horrifying 'non original' state. Why bother to put
them back? Your existing head is unlikely to be original WW2 since they
didn't cast 'Willys' into the early heads and I don't think they added
'Jeep' till
after the war. If your head has ribs in a sort of waffle shape on it, it's
a post-war head and may well have come from a CJ2 or a generator engine.
Can't help you with a Ford head from this side of the pond though we do have
a few. Your genuine Ford head should have a nice big Ford 'F' embossed in
it up around the thermostat housing. Not very good for posing though since
it is almost completely obscured when you fit the oil filter housing
bracket. Cheers. Mike S @ RR Services.
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