cracked block help!!

[MINNOWNITE]

Purchased boat in spring 2019. Used all summer and ran well aside form a water leak i thought was coming from the exhaust manifold. So waited till now to deal with it. Removed engine. Removed manifold. No leak...Ok must be headgasket... removed it ...didnt suspect anything. Had a mechanic look at it to give me some advice before reasembly and found the block cracked! pretty bad too. So...how to repair? JB WELD? Machine shop? find a doner block? Biggest issue im having is that the engine runs great! aside from this water leak... 1990 omc 3.0L 

[Bigmoose2]

Minnownite, This happened to my neighbor a few years ago.  He needed help since he couldn't get or afford another block at the time.   

While pulling the motor, we also found that the soft plug was pushed out by the flywheel.  My fix was, reset soft plug, used big socket to hammer back in.  As for the crack, I drilled 1/32 hole in the ends (Not all the way through) thinking it would stop any further cracking.  Then I used a die grinder to produce a good V Groove.  Cleaned with acetone well and applied JB weld in 3 different coats with 24 hour cure time.  In between each coat I scuffed up with 80 grit to get a good bond.  The motor was put back in and had zero leaking, ran awesome that whole summer. To my knowledge he is still fishing the Big O with it.  

[MINNOWNITE]

@Bigmoose2 Thanks for the story! my frost plug also pushed out behind the flywheel. The flywheel was keeping it in just enough to not cause a big water leak lol. I think i will go with that method. I dont have much to loose anyway. 

[tuffishooker]

Quote

 

Why did the block crack ?

[MINNOWNITE]

I am assuming a bad winterization. The previous owner only had it for 1 year and didnt seem to know much about it. Either he was very good at sounding like an idiot or he was. 

[rolmops]

L&M (Hank) knows how to fix blocks


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[MINNOWNITE]

@rolmops do you have contact info? also where is he located? im in london ontario

[rolmops]

[mention=142241]rolmops[/mention] do you have contact info? also where is he located? im in london ontario

He is one of the moderators on this forum. He goes by L&M. He is in Port Bay (Wolcott NY)about 2 hours east of Buffalo, so that puts you at about 4 hours. 

 

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[MINNOWNITE]

12 minutes ago, rolmops said:

He is one of the moderators on this forum. He goes by L&M. He is about 2 hours east of Buffalo, so that puts you at about 4 hours.

 

 

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How do i search users? i tried in the search bar but nothing came up

[Traveling Circus]

Go to Messages (White envelope at the top right) click.......

click "compose new"

In the "To" field, type in L&M (no spaces).......

 

Say hello to Hank.........

[rolmops]

I messaged him, he will probably get in touch with you


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[L&M]

pm sent 

[Cbonaffinejr]

Hank is absolutely the best, very honest,very fair

[MINNOWNITE]

I've been in contact with Mick @ kraushaar machine shop in Tillsonburg. I would be able to get a brand new short block for $1200 plus shipping. Install new bearings. Old pistons with new rings. new gaskets. Should be under $2000 and a full new engine! So i'm currently exploring that avenue. Thanks for all the advice guys! 

[dbitting]

On 11/4/2019 at 8:37 AM, MINNOWNITE said:

Purchased boat in spring 2019. Used all summer and ran well aside form a water leak i thought was coming from the exhaust manifold. So waited till now to deal with it. Removed engine. Removed manifold. No leak...Ok must be headgasket... removed it ...didnt suspect anything. Had a mechanic look at it to give me some advice before reasembly and found the block cracked! pretty bad too. So...how to repair? JB WELD? Machine shop? find a doner block? Biggest issue im having is that the engine runs great! aside from this water leak... 1990 omc 3.0L 

I am in the exact situation, I bout my Penn Yan Tournament 212 from  Lake Ontario area and ran it several years winterized it each season. This Summer i lost a cylinder turned out to be a head. replaced the head and i was back on the water. In October i went to winterize my boat and when i drained the block nothing came out. It turned  out back in July i loaned  my boat to a friend fro his vacation and he hit a sandbar sucking mud and sand into the block clogging the water jackets.  I removed the engine flushed the cooling system managed to get the mud out but i found a bigger issue. It seems that the water jack  have built up considerable amounts of rust and was restricting water flow, although it never overheated. Well i decided to flip the motor and check the bearings only to find when the head went it sucked the oil out of the motor long enough to cause some damage to the bearings. Some scoring to the main and rod bearings. So I decided to take it to machine shop dropped off the block was given a parts list needed to rebuild the motor. the following week he called an told me the block was cracked jus like in your picture. he asked did it leak i said no never! Since there is very little pressure in an open cooling system he offered to stitch weld the block where you drill both ends of the block and add the tabs across the crack then weld it keeping the crack from expanding. For me this would not be an option because after seeing the rust and sand issue i was investing in a closed loop cooling system. I went and found a truck engine block with the same casting number and dropped at at the machine shop. The only difference is i now need an electric fuel pump. i didn't want to pay to drill the rod hole and screw holes for a mechanical pump.  So in the end you can weld it ind it may hold because it is low pressure but i would look into why it cracked in the first place.In my case i would bet my block had so much debris in it even though i winterized it  there was sand and water that froze cracking the block.

[MINNOWNITE]

What i ended up doing is going JB weld. hopefully it holds for a few years when i can afford to replace the engine. i ended up drilling the cracks and V grooving the crack. i did 3 applications of JB weld. Put the engine on a engine stand so i can work on a level surface. first 2 applications were light and forced into the crack. The 3rd application was heavy with drywall tape mesh. (seen it on a forum, figured couldnt hurt too much lol) all put back together and almost installed. just gotta wait for spring to see how it turned out

[dbitting]

I saved my old cracked block too. I will be trying to fix the cack and sending it out to be machined. I will build it as a spare motor for me if i lose mine during the season. 

 

[Zinger11]

If the motor is out of the boat would you be better off brazing it instead of jb weld ?

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[MINNOWNITE]

4 minutes ago, Zinger11 said:

If the motor is out of the boat would you be better off brazing it instead of jb weld ?

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it was too big of a crack and too close to the head. also for the price to get it welded vs a new block was too close. $5-600 to get it welded. $1200 for a bare block. $1700 by the time its in the boat. $20 worth of JB weld. $80 worth of gaskets. worth a shot i figure

[dbitting]

Do some research before you pay that kind of money. I paid $200 for the exact engine block out of an 89 s10 blazer. The only reason the fuel pump wasn't drilled was because the truck was EFI not carbureted. Don't let a marina fool you into the difference in marine and on road engines. Casting is a casting so use the casting numbers and search a salvage yard. My expenses are in the machine work,  block cleaning, cylinder boring .030 over turning the rod and main journals .010, Rebuild both heads and assembling the long block $1700. When complete I will have an engine built by a machine shop with 0 hours and quality parts, (purchased myself). Unfortunately it is a large expense  $2500+  then add the $800 closed loop cooling system once completed this should outlast me. My thought is one Seatow would cost that much out on the Atlantic Ocean, I'd rather have piece of mind i did everything right not to break down on the water.  Closed loop cooling  takes care of the need to winterize the engine, only need to tend to the heat exchanger and the exhaust manifolds if it's a half system like mine. Each year or two you only have to check the fresh water side for deposits and debris. Clean with acid  or CLR. 

[Zinger11]

2 hours ago, MINNOWNITE said:

it was too big of a crack and too close to the head. also for the price to get it welded vs a new block was too close. $5-600 to get it welded. $1200 for a bare block. $1700 by the time its in the boat. $20 worth of JB weld. $80 worth of gaskets. worth a shot i figure

welding and brazing are two different things brazing is done with a touch and take very well to cast. if you have access to touches the cost is under $50 and when its done will last forever 

[machzrcr]

i put some jb weld on a guys block for him.  He didnt want to pull engine. That was 3 seasons ago and hasnt leaked since... not the best way, but it worked in the situation.   

[hunter59]

It's funny to see that I had the same exact crack except it was in the lifter gallery area, because I didn't winterize cause I was gonna scrap it anyway. So my plan to scrap it and buy a new one didn't work out as I planned so I was forced to use for another season . So I ground out the crack and laid a ton of  JB WELD , and it got me through another season, LOL. Since you have already taken out the block the best way to repair would be with a OXYGEN-ACETYLENE TORCH and some BRONZE  BRAZING rod especially on a cast iron block like the other reader stated. It's cheap and would restore the strength of the block. Hope that helps.

[pic]

If the crack is on the outside like you show then it can be repaired easily. I have repaired 50 or 60 blocks like this. I am retired now for a long time but if you stitch it with iron tight tapered plugs it will be fine. Just remember to drill a hole at each end of the crack so it does not expand. Then start in the center and work to the edge overlapping each plug. Then go the other way to the edge. There are different size plugs that you can buy if you do it yourself or you can take it to an automotive machine shop that will do the stitching. I would not use heat (welding) unless you know what you are doing. Cast iron and welding do not mix and you would end up with more cracks. Just saying. I have used reverse polarity (cold welding) and it has worked but not as good as stitching.

I hope this helps.

rdub

[MINNOWNITE]

Funny how i get all these suggestions after I already repaired it and installed it into the boat. But thank you never the less!