Just looking for a quick pointer here guys. I'm going to bead blast a couple pairs of heads the day after tomorrow and was just trying to decide what to use to stop glass beads from getting inside of the valve guides. I've heard of guys using dowels, but the bore on the guide is 5.5mm and I would rather not spend the time tapering them all.

I'll only be glass beading the chambers, ports, and exterior of the head; i.e. the valve cover will be on and the oil galleys will be taped up.

I'm not sure the precaution is even necessary. If I were planning to have them hot tanked before they get reassembled, I assume that would get any embedded beads out of there. The chambers are going to be hit will aluminum oxide before they get ceramic coated and baked so nothing will be left over there.

 

Nevermind guys; looks like glass bead is a very bad idea for anything buy external surfaces. I'll just spend some money to get these hot tanked or clean them with acetone before I start on port work.