Is my possibly cracked om602 head worth anything? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

earl orchard · #1 02-23-2021, 12:23 PM

Hi all
I have an om602 head in my garage that might be cracked I was wondering if it had any value.

dieselbenz1 · #2 02-23-2021, 02:26 PM

They are not known to crack but if it is indeed cracked the value would be in prechambers, valves and other hardware. Scrap value for a cracked 603 head was $3.85 from the aluminum recyclers about a year ago here.

Rogviler · #3 02-23-2021, 04:12 PM

Ha ha damn, no wonder everybody just throws aluminum cans in the garbage now.

cmac2012 · #4 02-23-2021, 04:48 PM

You get more for cans. About 4 times as much per pound more.

Aliminum is worth more than nothing, but it's the least useful of the semi precious metals. I save metals from my work, about once a year I'll sell it for maybe $100 to $150 at the scrap metal yard. That has gone down in the last 10 - 15 years. You can take in quite a bit of alum and it will still be a small entry on you bill of purchase, sale, whatever.

I had to haul some accumlated junk left behind by tenants from an employers building, this as part of the remodel. Two 17 inch ultra wide wheels and tires in the mix. The transfer station charges $18 for a car rim with tire. I had the tires pulled for $5 apiece, even included tire dump fee at a Latino tire yard. I'm hoping to get $10 apiece at least for the rims.

Main thing for me, we've done maybe 95% of the dirty work to get that alum/copper/brass already, work that pollutes, uses energy, the whole thing. Paying someone to bury it seems incredibly stupid. Pretty sure the transfer station sells the alumwheels rather than burying them. They're not stupid. But so much other semi-precious metal is buried every year.

charmalu · #5 02-24-2021, 01:09 PM

Unless Berkley Transfer Station is different and they have people going through all the Garbage, it all get buried.
Amazing how much stuff could be recycled.

In Santa Cruz County, at the Ben Lomond Transfer Station I know nothing there gets separated. Crap gets dumped onto the floor of the big building,
Garbage trucks, contractors remodel stuff etc... Loader pushes it all across the floor into the big transfer trailers, and it all gets hauled 30 miles south to the Watsonville land Fill.

They do have have the recycle section with big Dumpsters for card Board, Steel, Glass etc.... but that is all voluntary.

I remember when the CRV stuff started, it was $0.10 lb for cans, we thought we were going to get rich. That was in the 70`s.

It did get up to around $1.50 or more a lb in the late 90`s early 20`s.
I took a load in my Datsun PU to A&S Metals in Watsonville. Had something like 28 big plastic bags with flattened cans. Came home with something like $800.

Here in Nevada not much in the recycle dept. Took a load of scrap metal, separated it all, and came home with about $40. Think cans were around $0.30 a lb.

Had 2 Micro Wave ovens and got something 1 1/2 cent a lb. Cost me more in shoe leather to carry them from the truck to the scrap pile.

Charlie

cmac2012 · #6 02-24-2021, 01:25 PM

I don't live in Berkeley any more, I did for years, nice town. I leave it up there in the heading for stick poking. I'm sort of an ass, don't tell anyone.

I take my stuff to a transfer station in San Carlos, little town between SF and Palo Alto, closer to the latter. They have a dumpster in the main transfer/dumping room for tires and rims, for steel, for cardboard. But you make a point, if someone just tossed it on the concrete floor, not sure anyone is going to fish it out and throw it in the dumpster before the giant front loader consolidates it all. I suspect the stuff that lands in the dumpsters is there because someone told the guy at the door they had it and "where do I toss it." People who buried wheels and tires under other garbage to avoid the extra fee probably toss it on the floor.

One time I dumped some stuff and saw a large ball of various sorts of wire on the floor. Really large, was a chore to life it and put it in my truck. I think it was worth $15 to $20. I had been about to take in my stash anyway.

In front of the transfer station is a recycling station - has gone through a lot of changes - they no longer buy bottles and cans, the ones sold for the deposit. I did that once, serious PITA for $5 or $6. Now I just toss it all in the bin for mixed bottles and cans, I assume they make some money on it, fine with me, pay for operating costs. They have a dumpster for scrap metal. I put steel and other metals too much trouble to sell in there. A few times I've sold water heaters and cast iron tubs to the steel buyer not far away from my shop. They want a 300 lb minimum IIRC. For a water heater you might get $20, the 400 lb tub (old Kohler) brought me about $30. Better than paying to toss it.

I read once that we throw away enough aluminum every year to rebuild the entire US air fleet four times over. Who knows. A lot of aluminum is a serious chore to rescue, such as the edging of cheapo windows and sliding doors. Hard work, glass can break and cut you, for which you might get a few bucks worth of scrap. But we are way casual with even the easy stuff.

argon3030 · #7 02-24-2021, 01:49 PM

Supply and demand. Aluminum supply is virtually unlimited, so even with high demand, the price is always going to be really low. It's the 3rd most abundant element on Earth, behind Oxygen and Silicon. The crust of the Earth is made of 8.23% aluminum, by mass. Throw your beer cans in the trash, toss them in the ocean, whatever, humans will never ever run out of Aluminum.

cmac2012 · #8 02-24-2021, 04:13 PM

True enough, we won't run out of bauxite but I gather alum is one of the more energy intensive metals to smelt. Search backs that up.

The trouble with aluminium

A good case can be made that aluminum recycling is good for our economy IMO. The article mentions an old gag line: "aluminum is bascially congealed electricity." Wasting energy not prudent. Throwing aluminum away is throwing away energy. Of course we need to minimize the energy used to haul aluminum to a recycler.

argon3030 · #9 02-24-2021, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

A good case can be made that aluminum recycling is good for our economy IMO. The article mentions an old gag line: "aluminum is bascially congealed electricity." Wasting energy not prudent. Throwing aluminum away is throwing away energy. Of course we need to minimize the energy used to haul aluminum to a recylcler.

Yes I completely agree. My point was that there will never be a financial incentive for small scale recycling of aluminum. There are other valid reasons as you point out, but $$ in hand from the scrap yard man isn't one of them. If I had a dead cylinder head to recycle, I'd simply drop it in my municipal mixed recycle bin - it's not worth the time/fuel/effort to visit the scrap yard across town.

cmac2012 · #10 02-25-2021, 01:08 AM

I'll agree with all of that. Dropping it in the recycle station metals bin is plenty good enough. But even that doesn't occur to a lot of people. I wouldn't make a special trip with aluminum unless I had a huge amount of it. The metal scrap buyer I sell to is on the way to some of my clients and I take a lot more brass and copper with me than aluminum.

I like the morality of recycling, though with glass and plastics you wonder if it's really accomplishing much. Reducing the volume of trash I need to pay to dispose of is an added bonus. For example, did you know that you get a few bucks for old garbage disposals, the kitchen sink variety I mean? They pay a low price for most any motor. Copper. And even the steel has some value. I can only guess they chip the holy hell out of that stuff and sort it magnetically.

If I'm going to lift a disposal to get rid of it I'd rather lift it into one of the tare weighted wheelbarrows at the scrap buyer.

Usaguy · #11 02-25-2021, 04:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by earl orchard

Hi all
I have an om602 head in my garage that might be cracked I was wondering if it had any value.

"Might be"

I don't know if it's worth your time and energy to make cover plates to do a pressure test but that's a proper way to check a cylinder head.

Wonder what the value is of a good 602 head

dieselbenz1 · #12 02-25-2021, 10:17 AM

602 heads are fairly rare but I have a good spare turbo head that I value at 400 and I've seen them sell at $600 in the past 5 years.

charmalu · #13 02-25-2021, 02:15 PM

Your 602 Head has great value, till it has a crack and value leaks out.

Just had to say it. Yeah there were not a lot of those engines made, so ya, supply and demand.

Our local County dump, charges you to dump scrap metal in their metal pile.
Every piece of metal you can think of. But just pick up something from that pile that could be use full, there is someone watching and call down to the weigh scale shack, and they make you take it back.

When we bought our place back in 2014, (4+ acres) the Pump, Motor, wiring and 1" pipe going down into the well had been replaced. It was thrown out into the sage Brush. Was kicking my

later about what I could have got just from the Copper wire.

Same with brush and wood. Huge pile of it, and they charge for that also.
Saw an older man pick up some scrap boards after he cleaned out his PU. He had to go back and throw it in the pile.

The Gov. tells us we have to recycle our Tin Cans, yet sinks most of it`s old war ships.
There is a agency in Hawaii called sink ex, forget the abbreviation. They clean up the old ships tow them out to sea and sink them. Out of sight, out of mind.

Back in the 60`s I served on a WWII Navy Destroyer, it and I were both launched the same year, 44. I remember on gunnery practice, the Gunner`s mates would shoot at old Destroyers, and Destroyer Escorts and sink them off of San Diego. We used 5"38, and they bake a big bang.
It`s all Fish Habitat now.

Charlie