atk cylinder heads

[hwscowboy]

hey all
So working on replacing the blown head gasket on my 99 ram 2500 v10.Thinking a may just replace the cylinder heads with a rebuilt set.But not having much luck finding them or at least someone who has them and will ship to Canada.So far my choices seems to be my local napa who can get them out of seattle for about 1000 a side or I did find a set on ebay from a company called atk north American.Anybody ever buy anything from them.They would be about 1000$ for the pair shipped to me.

 

[dapepper9]

Atk does a lot of core rebuilds

 

[Yeret]

Not sure how prone the V10 heads were to cracking but if they're okay, you might wanna just have your existing ones rebuilt since, as you've discovered, V10 heads are difficult to come by.

 

[hwscowboy]

that's what I am worried about as I have heard these heads had some cracking issues.It seems most had them early on and mine has 275,000 km on them,May be time for them to be rebuilt anyways.The truck runs good and has never given me any issues until now.I drove it into the city about a 50 km drive on a very cold day,minus 25 C.Truck ran fine until I hit the first light in the city,heat went stone cols and temp gauge started to climb,went to about 1/2 then back down and again up to 1/2 and back down,Stopped and topped up the antifreeze and drove home,Truck never got hot,in fact seemed to run colder than normal.Reservoir was empty next day.Only seemed to use it on really cold days,once it warmed up 15 degrees or so antifreeze use stopped.Pressure tested the system,found a leaking radiator tank on the drivers side and when I dropped the oil it was contaminated with coolant,not completely but definitely on the milky side.Just figure if I am going through the hassle of tearing the top end off the motor a set of rebuilts might be a quicker way to go.ATk has some mixed reviews on their motors,not sure if 28 complaints on the 1000 or so motors they build a year is a concern.They are sold through autozone.