Shipping cylinder heads

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70dart340

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Hello to all. With the wealth of knowledge on this site, I have a shipping question. I have a bare set of 915 "Z" heads I'm donating to "Rumblefish", a long time member here whom I've come to meet last summer, and I've come to respect. He has a 1973 "Cuda 340, and I'm donating my heads to the cause. The problem is, I live north of Seattle, and he's in central Florida. What's the cheapest way to ship the heads to him? I have some wood working skills, so I can build him a set of 3/4" plywood boxes with handles to ship them to him. Could any of my Mopar Brothers /Sisters please tell me the cheapest and safest way to get them there? Bare weight for each head is 48 pounds. Looking for sage advice to make sure they get there inone piece, without any bill that has a comma in it. Thanks in advance, Paul.
 
You also donate about 100 bucks to ship them.

Cant he find some j heads in florida... or does the z mean that much?

Are these offset rocker t/a heads?
If so....wow...what a nice guy you are..
 
Make A tight box out of heavy duty corrugated/cardboard box . make another tight box around the first. Do that for each . Send them separately . USPS.. I usually go to U-haul and get heavy duty boxes to cut down if my son doesn't have head boxes that he gets heads in.

If you know a local machine shop ask them for head boxes or crank boxes. UPS or Fed-ex may ne a little cheaper
 
I shipped a pair of x-heads a couple years back and made boxes out of USB and some 1x2's. Shipped FedEx. I think it was around 50 bucks a head, maybe I remember wrong. You can try Greyhound as well.
 
If you get a close fitting double wall cardboard box you can ship UPS using "simple rate" max volume 1728 and 50 lb max. is $27.30 each.
 
I have shipped some cylinder heads before, I got some boxes from my machine shop from new cylinder heads they had gotten for other customers.
 
Unless theres something special about those heads (Maybe the coolant passages are full of cocaine?) it's not worth the shipping cost...
 
UPS simple rate is your best bet. If there is a #50 limit, your pushing it! Its only available online. box it up, measure and weigh, print up shipping slip and take it to UPS. They will just tell you to put it in "the pile" and your done.
 
If you ship one head per package, USPS, double boxed in cardboard. Use crumpled newspaper to fill the voids in the box or crate both, 1x4 wood frame lined inside with cardboard. Fill voids with crumpled newspaper especially between the heads. 2x4’s and 1x4 to make a pallet that can be picked up with a forklift. Ship through Fastenal 3 party shipping, they will bargain with you to a point. I buy distressed lumber from fleet farm for $1.00 a stick like 1”x4”x8’ when they have some and buy as much as I can get my hands on and screw it together with drywall screws. Any old cardboard boxes will do cut to size with a utility knife and stapled with a staple gun. It takes me about 45 minutes to build a box and about 3 dollars of materials to build a box for 2 heads. Never have used greyhound cause they have a weight limit and its a farther drive than my nearest Fastenal. My experience with fedex,ups and the such has sucked, delivered to wrong address or have to drive to the distribution center cause they can’t find the address. Around holiday time its worse with part time careless help. I have used Fastenal 3 separate times, a hood, a door and a windshield. Very happy with the price and service.
 
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I would recommend Fastenal, also, but it’s unfortunately not an option for them with their shipping zone constraints at present. I recently shipped a pair of 318 heads separately to northern New York a couple of months ago through UPS for about $100 the pair using double layered cardboard.
 
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I recently shipped a pair of 318 heads separately to northern New York a couple of months ago for about $100 the pair using double layered cardboard.

I bought a set and they were shipped from down south to Michigan, I think it was about 90 bucks for both in separate boxes.
 
On trucking companies, R-L carriers may be an option. They do large item shipping from the west coast to the east coast for Amazon, so they probably have a trailer going from one shipping hub to the next on the way there. It may take a month before they get a full shipment to send it out, but it would probably be the lowest cost way. What works for them is to strap them to a small partial pallet (cut down a full size one) for a hand truck and plastic stretch wrap the top.
 
When I shipped heads I used spray foam to keep them safe.Heads in a bag a couple of foam blocks to support the heads off the bottom and fill up the box with spray foam...Never had any problems.You could hit the cardboard box with a hammer and nothing happens.
 
FABO express from one member handing off to the next, like a relay.
 
FABO express from one member handing off to the next, like a relay.
Now that would be a team effort! I could do the final handoff to the container yards of Long Beach if it's going down under. We got a member who does shipping container boxes from LB to Oz.
 
I thought Rumblefish was from New York... :BangHead:
Key word highlighted! I’m in Florida now.

I iust sent a pm over to Paul. I think this is more trouble than it is worth on both ends. Paul has these heads and is moving back to Florida soon and he would like to do two things. Give them as a gift and not carry them to do so from the PNW to mid Florida’s east coast.

I do appreciate the jester very much, this could be expensive to do and a hassle for Paul to even box up.
 
I shipped a set of heads through fastenal years back. Put them on a small pallet and wrapped it up in plastic. Dustin
 
Many thanks to all for their advice. There's nothing special about the heads, other than being somewhat uncommon "Z" heads.
 
All the big heavy engine parts I've ever shipped, I break down a big cardboard box, lay it on the floor, throw the part in the middle and wrap it up with the cardboard and tape the begeezus out of it. It's always been cheaper than building a crate or using a ready made box and always gotten where I need it to go.
 
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Swing by any local machine shop and they will most likely have many cylinder head boxes just laying around. They will most likely give them to you just to get rid of them. Then you don’t have to make or buy anything. And the heads won’t get damaged in shipping.

It is still pretty expensive to ship heads no matter how you do it.
 
Many thanks to all for their advice. There's nothing special about the heads, other than being somewhat uncommon "Z" heads.
The last set I shipped I used meat packing boxes that I got for free from the local Kroger store. Worked well after I cut them down and the boxes have grab holes for easy handling.
 
Keep in mind if you use wood over corrugated you paying for the wieght of the wood. Use corrugated & double box.
 
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