blasting a head and cylinders

Hi

I'm considering soda blasting my 650 head and cylinders to clean them and give them a nice finish. From what I've read in these forms the soda is very gentle on the aluminum and does a good job of cleaning. What areas of the head do i need to mask. I was thinking about installing the valve cover when I blast the head to keep the cam seats and valve tops clean. this would let me do both parts at once. What about the head gasket area? I've seen some pictures that look like the head gasket area was blasted too. I'd like to clean the cylinder tops. The soda shouldn't hurt the hard valve seats should it? I'm going to lap in the valves after blasting it. I think I should plug the oil ports to keep them clean. Sorry to ramble on and on :woohoo: any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Guys.

You should have no problem.

Jay

So the soda shouldn't harm the gasket area's? on the head or cylinders?

I actually glass beaded my head. I left my valve cover on to keep anything out of the valves, but removed the valves. Make sure you plug the valve guides. You will probably still get some particles in the cam area. Which is hard to clean out unless you are replacing the valve seals because you can't remove the spring seats without removing the seals. And to remove everything you will need an in head valve spring remover. If your not going to do any valve work and the valves seat properly it would be a good idea to leave them in, that way you don't get anything in your cams.

You will never ever get all the glass beads cleaned out no matter how good of a job you think you did. The beads get into the metal itself. Looks pretty but very tough on the motors. Too late now but Id be looking for another motor. I know someone will disagree with this, whatever, learn the hard way. Ive seen too many of them ruined