My 68 sedan lost its original motor sometime in the early 1980s. I don't know precisely what happened, but I hear it was oil-pump related. The original owner (whom I've never met) was having the engine rebuilt when another 1968 B18B engine suddenly became available.

Supposedly the cylinder head for the original motor was rebuilt, but never installed. It was in the trunk of the car when I bought it back in July. It was nice and dusty, but otherwise looking as though something had been done to it. No crud or oil residue in any of the nooks or crannies.

After my head swap a couple weeks ago, I was toying with the thought of putting the supposedly "rebuilt" original head back into the car. The swapped head that is on there now is from a 500,000 mile B18D and it suffers from frozen/broken manifold studs that I'm getting tired of drilling out and re-tapping.

So... I'm not sure how to tell if the head has had any real work done to it. The valves look pretty nice - lacking that cruddy build up I've seen on the other engines I've taken apart. The mating surface looks quite smooth, but aside from that I have no idea what to look for in a rebuilt head.

I'm guessing maybe a 3 or 5-angle valve grind? I'd have to break out the spring compressor to investigate. Is there something else I should be looking for to indicate the state of the head? I'd hate to blow my new headgasket on a suspect component...