Hi Guys,

most likely is is .... at least I now have a guinea pig on which I can try a lot of shady treatments, like the good ole water glass in the water jackets, for instance.

Two weeks ago, I asked how to best put the head gaskets back on, pulled the heads because I found a few drops of coolant in the oil pan.
With the heads of, the cylinders have some ridge and have taper about 0.007 inch at the top. The decks have no cracks, not at the bolt holes and no cracked valve seats.
Pistons are still standard size 3,3/16. I was delighted, as a hone and ring job would be sufficient to do some driving around town before rebuilding. On closer inspection, the cylinders 4 and 8 have some severe wash out at small spots at the top. Narrow, but really deep. What the heck is this? The pits are orientated to the valves, at least not towards the exhaust manifold, where water or mouse pee would collect, if any got in for extended periods of time. OK, nothing which a rebore and two sleeves could not fix.
But after some more cleaning, I found another likely reason for the coolant drops: The engine maybe frozen some time, as I found a pan rail crack at the main bearing. Not gapingly large, but clearly there. Now I think it is not wise to throw big money at this block. The engine was running reasonably good before I took it apart to desludge it. I did not notice white water steam from the exhaust, at least. It had "some" blow by though, which I thought are sticky rings from sitting for ages.









A 1+1/2 hrs drive from me there is a guy with a 8BA block out of a F1 which supposedly is free of cracks. But it is 0.060 over already and was seized. The pistons were knocked out and there is a fair share of rust in the valve pockets. May be still worth a try to rebuild. In this part of the world, good blocks are hard to come by, although in cologne the g28t and g38t versions were build by the 1000's.

Wil

 

That appears to be a helicoil in the pan bolt hole where the crack is? Looks like someone else tried to fix the cracks, the one cylinder appears to have the crack ground out. Are you using dye penetrant or a mag particle tester to locate cracks in the deck? I'd bet those two cylinders have cracks starting at the valve pockets and running down the cylinder. You wouldn't necessarily be able to see them with the naked eye.

The crack in the pan rail is fatal, I'm afraid. You could pay a couple hundred bucks to have it stitched, but that's a very stressed area of the block. I bet if you strip all the paint off the outside of the block an inch or so above the pan rail, you'll find a nice long horizontal crack in the water jacket, too.

 

Thank you Ross,

for your evaluation. No, there is no helicoil insert in the screw hole, but that particular screw unscrewed with just two fingers, LOL. I do not know when helicoils were invented, but .... this engine block was not touched in decades, judgeing from the amount of dirt, oil and rust it was evenly covererd in. It had two new water pumps instead and a new radiator. These are two more hints that the old rad and pumps maybe froze as well. When inspecting the truck, I did not look close enough and was carried away by the nice idle of the engine.

Regarding the cracks, all I did was visual inspection, and after finding the pan rail crack, I gave up in frustration to dig any deeper. I put the heads back on and pressurized the whole cylinder bank with a Schrader valve in the upper hose, in lack of proper pressure plates. I could not find any obvious leaks, the outer water jacket is intact.

Interesting, that panrail cracks apparently can be repaired. I thought nobody touches them with a 10ft pole. A (new) better block sets me back a couple 100 bucks as well. Currently I gather information about high nickel content welding rods for cast iron. You can use them on a cold block in intervals and with a lot of peening. As I said, the block is shot anyway and could serve as a test object. I have nothing to loose. If that works out, sleeving and rebore would put me back in the game.

But I'll do that after some other work. Right now, I need the truck running and moving, as I work alone and I simply cannot push it around the property just by myself. Thus, it will be running again pretty soon.

 

Here's a thread on the Ford Barn about a chap in UK who found a rail crack, some interesting comments on it, too: https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=122495. (You can't see the pics unless you are a member there). A lot of people fixed the leaking with JB Weld, with decent results. But it depends what you want out of the engine, and yours still has the cylinders to deal with.

 

Sorry to hear of your situation. I'm sure it is much tougher to get another engine in Germany. Did you say you are going to reassemble the engine anyway? If so you can try a really industrial grade block sealer. As you said you have nothing to lose and it just might work for a while...?? I have some sealer in my Olds 350 because of a weeping head gasket and it did work. May be worth a try. Good luck!

 

 

Yes, that would be a rather encouraging thread from Mart. Another great source are Tractor forums. You won't believe what skillful farmers and tractor collectors are welding together ant get away with it, even in the long run. Will be looking for a rebuildble block as well, which might take quite some time and expenses.

For the time being, I'll try to seal the engine block with ceramic seal = water glass or liqiud glass. The water jackets are clean and flushed with water anyway. This should buy me the time needed to find another block. God knows how long it did run this way - it definitely did. And if I can stop the minute water seepage into the oil, it will probably do a couple miles more. I hope it has not left for good yet.