What is wrong with disassembly and TIG welding that crack. We have welded many blocks. In fact in Diesel school I had a class called block repair and that was primarily what we did. Am I missing something?
My Cruiser is on CRACK.
- Thread starter LittleRock80
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If you go that route, I would take a die grinder with a wire wheel clean around the area. The wire wheel will etch the metal a bit and help the adhesion of the JB-Weld.
Well Mudders,
I talked with my local Cruiser Shop, The Cruiser Company The Cruiser Company Home Page which is conveniently located 2 miles down from my parents out in the sticks outside Little Rock, about my problem. When I showed Bobby, the owner, he said that he's personally worked on 3 80's with this same problem, 2 of them with the cracks near rear freezeplug (which he said is harder to repair, naturally) instead of the middle F.P. So, what was his fix? It's similar/same to what a few others have tried/suggested:
1) Drain the coolant out of the truck and let sit for 2 days so as to be as dry as possible.
2) Clean the crack and the area around it with a solvent and then wire brush the area.
3) Take a Dremel or grinder and cut a shallow grove following the line of the crack and extend a little north and south of the crack's end(s).
4) J-B WELD the Crack.
5) Let truck sit for a 2 days to make sure the J-B cures.
6) Refill truck with coolant and drive as before.
Anyone have anything to add??
Bobby said so far he's 3/3 on the J-B weld repairs, meaning the trucks are still going with no active coolant leaks, so this weekend I'm going to go for it. I'll probably drain the oil and pull the filter so I have more room to get at the crack.
I'd love to have a more "Permanent" fix because this is always going to be in the back of my mind (especially when I'm towing or pushing the truck hard) that I have bubble gum holding the coolant in my block.
That JB Weld is remarkable stuff. In a day of space age this and space age that, it is a tried and true product and I think it will work just fine for you. It will all come down to preparation quality. There are machinist products that will use capillary action to clean hairline cracks and/or perhaps a fine tipped air gun to get every speck of dust and oil out of the work area to prep for JB weld. I'd also be super anal about using the precise ratio of JB when mixing.
There's another machinist product you spray on a block and it highlights a hairline crack in red to help you know how far to work. I don't know if this is easy to get back out of the crack, however.
DougM
There's another machinist product you spray on a block and it highlights a hairline crack in red to help you know how far to work. I don't know if this is easy to get back out of the crack, however.
DougM
JB Weld should work fine. A friend of mine froze his boat engine last winter and repaired the block with JB Weld on recommendation of several boat mechanics. He has put over 100 hours already this Summer and there is no signs of any problems yet. I think the main thing with JB Weld is to "over-prep" the area to insure proper adhesion.
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- #26
Thanks for the comments , ideas, and encouragement fellas. I really appreciate it. I'll keep you posted on how it goes and take some pics throughout the process for later reference.
Justin
Justin
Blue Deviel???
Go get it from auto zone i had a 96 land rover discovery it was just a play toy, my brother used it one day and cracked the block on it and i used the blue devil stuff it works best $70.00 bucks i ever spent
Go get it from auto zone i had a 96 land rover discovery it was just a play toy, my brother used it one day and cracked the block on it and i used the blue devil stuff it works best $70.00 bucks i ever spent
heres a link to a product that i have used to repair aluminum and cast steel ,cast iron, its called hts-2000 for aluminum and hts 528 for ferrous metals. They are brazing rods made specifically for this type of repair, workrs by heating the repair area and letting the rod melt from the parent metals heat, pretty easy to do ,just need a torch that can reach the melting point of the type of rod you are using. I have saved hundreds on condensors and heads, very strong stuff. Aluminum Welding - Aluminum Repair - Aluminum Brazing - AluminumRepair.com at the bottom of the page they list the ferrous metal rods, there is a guy on ebay selling these rods in smaller quantities so you dont have to spend an arm and a leg to do small repairs. this will fix your problem.
Hmmm.... JB Weld, I carry that just in case I have to do an emergency patch on something in the bush. I would not use it as a long term repair.
These folks are right in a combined sense...
Cast iron can be welded reliably with a high nickle content rod. Regular carbon steel does not work, it'll make the crack spread and you'll never quit chasing it out!
I work in the oil industry for, well, big oil and we occasionally weld cast iron in applications where we can't find a suitable replacement part, i.e., say in an old school cast iron recip steam pump that has an unavailable casting, or in situations where a something has a mating cast iron to steel part.
Find a reputable welding shop that is comfortable with the proper weld procedure, if I'm not mistaken, mild pre-heat to take the chill off and TIG with high nickle filler. TIG will result in a much more controlled localized heat pattern over stick (less chance of warping your "frost plug" hole) and a good TIG welder will do a nice clean job.
These folks are right in a combined sense...
Cast iron can be welded reliably with a high nickle content rod. Regular carbon steel does not work, it'll make the crack spread and you'll never quit chasing it out!
I work in the oil industry for, well, big oil and we occasionally weld cast iron in applications where we can't find a suitable replacement part, i.e., say in an old school cast iron recip steam pump that has an unavailable casting, or in situations where a something has a mating cast iron to steel part.
Find a reputable welding shop that is comfortable with the proper weld procedure, if I'm not mistaken, mild pre-heat to take the chill off and TIG with high nickle filler. TIG will result in a much more controlled localized heat pattern over stick (less chance of warping your "frost plug" hole) and a good TIG welder will do a nice clean job.
Dye penetrant testing (Magnaflux makes it). Spray it on and hit it with developer, you have to know how to use it since it's not always easy to read and can be misleading. We have government trained metals inspectors that do this full time (as well as other more technical types of inspection such as x-ray).
If you can see the crack and where it terminates that's probably all you need to do the repair, but what the hell if you can get it done, before and after the repair, you can confirm that it got fixed.
Years ago I had an F150 with a crack in a plastic radiator end cap. It was seeping, but quickly enough that I had to check it daily. I drained the system, let everything dry, cleaned the area as well as I could with a solvent, then covered it in JB Weld. After a few hours with a heat lamp on it, I refilled with coolant. When I sold that truck about a year later, the radiator was dry. Note that this was also done in the dead of winter (outside no less), on a PLASTIC part that experiences dramatic temperature changes. JB Weld is damn good stuff.
If you doubt the ability of JBWeld to hold up to the heat cycling and chemicals, Google around about Vanagon heads and JBWeld. Water cooled Vanagons, like LCs, have a head gasket problem that seems to be exacerbated by the use of the wrong coolant. Over time, the coolant corrodes out pits in the aluminum heads under the head gaskets and causes head gasket failure. The cheap fix is to take off the heads, dremel out the pits, and fill them with JBWeld and surface nicely. I did this and ran the Vanagon for a few more years before selling it. Lots of people swear by this fix.
Your crack is not in an area where it is carrying any structural load. Rather, it is probably just the result of heat cycling stress. So although it would be nice to have a fully welded solution that is as strong structurally as the original cast iron, this is overkill for that particular location because it carries no load. What you really need is a good way to plug the leak in that crack. If it were mine, I would empty all coolant and blow into the crack and all around on the outside with a bottle of brake cleaner or electronic parts cleaner. Then I would get JBWeld on top of the crack, place a small rubber suction cup over the JBWeld, and force it into the crack as best I could. Get messy and force it in, and leave a good bit of height and width on the JBWeld on the external area so that it has good strength. It would be really great if you could have the engine block at least warm, because this would aid JBWeld flowing in, but it's not necessary. I bet this fix will outlast the rest of the motor. If you are feeling really, really ambitious, you could drill into the block at the end of the crack to keep the crack from spreading further. Just my $.02
Your crack is not in an area where it is carrying any structural load. Rather, it is probably just the result of heat cycling stress. So although it would be nice to have a fully welded solution that is as strong structurally as the original cast iron, this is overkill for that particular location because it carries no load. What you really need is a good way to plug the leak in that crack. If it were mine, I would empty all coolant and blow into the crack and all around on the outside with a bottle of brake cleaner or electronic parts cleaner. Then I would get JBWeld on top of the crack, place a small rubber suction cup over the JBWeld, and force it into the crack as best I could. Get messy and force it in, and leave a good bit of height and width on the JBWeld on the external area so that it has good strength. It would be really great if you could have the engine block at least warm, because this would aid JBWeld flowing in, but it's not necessary. I bet this fix will outlast the rest of the motor. If you are feeling really, really ambitious, you could drill into the block at the end of the crack to keep the crack from spreading further. Just my $.02
Just a thought but what about knocking the freeze plug out and jb welding from the inside as well as outside and installing a new plug. Could grind drill , fill with weld or braze on the outside and just jb weld on the inside, not a terrible ammount inside but just a skimcoat with a finger.
