Man oh man.......engine block cracks........:-(

I started stripping the oodles and oodles of old nasty paint off the block and saw a familiar beast rear it's ugly head. Lo and behold I had two big'ol cracks on the carb side of the engine. They span almost 2 cylinders lengthwise.

I did have the head off (installed new valves and machined in new valve seats(doughnut type)) but I hadn't scraped the old head gasket off yet so I commenced immeadeatly to doing that. My poor lil' tractors injury's grew worse still.
he port side cracks aint nothing compared to the ones on the deck. My God I was looking at the grand canyon when I saw this. If it weren't a sleeve engine the middle two cylinders would be breached.

Cracks aren't really a big deal for me though. On some of the 20's cars and truck engines that I've rebuilt and rebabbited I've come across stress cracks and such. This C-123 on my poor lil Farmall 100 has to be the absolute worst case I've ever seen though. :-( How could someone do this to an engine????? ?

I fixed it though and suprisingly I didn't have to machine down the deck. The cracks are inside of the head studs and the head slips on with no force so it hasn't expanded outward. I left the grand canyon deck side the way it was but I've welded up the port side longitudal cracks. Took my angle grinder and dug into the cracks to trench them out and drilled the end of each one to terminate it. Using my torch I kept the tracks preheated just ahead of my weld. The suckers fixed now but my God what horrible cracks these were?

I was so scared that I dusted the old head gasket with chalk to ensure that the combustion chambers would seal against each sleeve (which they did).

Has anyone had such a brutalized block????? Who in the hell would run an engine to where it would burst like this?????

I'm thinking I'll put aside a little green to purchase a spare block to keep handy should anything ill happen to this one. How much do C-123 blocks usually run?????

Well, I have a 113 block off of a '48 Super A but it has a couple of issues!!!

The cracks on mine are much, much wider (can fit a paper clip in it) but strange enough it didn't affect the deck or cause it to expand to where I couldn't reinstall the head.

I didn'tmess with these cracks, just the ones on the outside. These were just in the water passages.

My brother was into automatic weapons about 10 years ago. Divorce solved that. Probably only divorce settled with proceeds from an M-60 belt fed.

Thanks, Gene

I open the crack up with a 90 degree grinder and disc. I cut a V channel not completley through but deep enough to give me some considerable surface area to work with. I try and do the job in one whole pass keeping the torch just in front of my rod and I keep a bunch of rods in my pocket sdo I don't have to leave the job so it won't cool off too much. Easy to do than to explain. Just flow with the metal as it takes it.

Jeez that sucks about your bro:( M-60 aint cheap and the last transferable I saw went for over $25,000. I think they are much higher now.

I'll probably never use it since this one I have here seems quite tight but alas I am stricken with the disease of collecting more parts than I need!

Look at the pic below and on the FARMALL emblem on the side of the hood.

The crack spans from the F to the A and I"m not talking about the first A either.

Woops....

Those rods for cast iron work pretty well but I just use a good steel rod. The trick is to preheat the cut or crack first before zapping it up. You want to draw the tip of your torch down to a very small fine cutting tip. Use this about an inch or so in front of your rod. A good dull to medium red will ensure penetration. Also take an angle grinder and cut down into the crack to make a sort of V trench it"s length. You will fill this trench and this will allow you to have a good solid weld that you can dress down to match the block surface. I do this on engine parts that are visible and cannot show welds for show. Some folks like MIG"s for this, I prefer a stick.

On parts like a cast iron Model T head that has a pebbly casting surface you can duplicate the texture by using a coarse sand and abrasive blasting the spot. I use this on some of the post 86 dealer sample automatic weapons that I reweld as well and mimic the surface textures.

I did strip the block for this but that was only because I was cleaning it and going to repaint it as well. I bought this tractor for utility and not for show but I like my machines clean. As far as shavings I don"t penetrate through the block when champfering the cracks. I get about 2/3rds deep and that"s it. Even if you somehow penetrate through the water jacket it"s not a big deal as long as you"ve closed it up. Just let it cool and flush whatever loose stuff you can out. It"s just the water jacket and nothing mechanical anyway but you for sure don"t want stuff getting in your pump though.

What does a new (used of course) block for these normally run? I'd like to get one for a spare "just in case" though I doubt I'll have any trouble with it.

The only thing that trully bugged me about these cracks were that they affected the deck of the engine which resulted in a large crack 1/32" in width that connects two of the sleeves. Strange enough nothing was warped.

Ice may have indeed done this Mr. MacKay. It never crossed my mind till now! :-)

I've seen a lot of broken blocks in A, SA, 100 and 130. Folks used to claim you couldn't add antifreeze to the old thermosyphon A and SA without pre mixing. I guess likely they right if one only runs it 5 min, and probably not up to temp. I've added antifreeze to my SA many times, to bring it up to strength, but always when it was going to be worked for several hours. In my lifetime, I've had 3 - SA, 2 - 130 and a 140, and never had any problems. Now, I do live in a climate where your antifreeze has to test for -40F. Just maybe that keeps one a bit sharper than say for example folks that rarely see temps below 20F.

I've had folks say to me, long after the first damaging frost, "Do you suppose I should check the antifreeze in that little farmall I have?" Poor time to be asking in my opinion, but you know the problem, guy who services his car or pickup, checked that. I never would have believed so many folks could be so careless about the little tractor they bought for yard work.

I would almost bet money, that 95% of all C-113 and C-123 engines with cracked or repaired cracked blocks, happened as a result of freezing. They always break right behind the carburator. A few have happened as result of collision, but I'm betting the front axle will tell the tale on those, as it will be toast and block will be broken across the front.

The antifreezing agent ethelyne glycol has no rust preventative properties but the other additives and soluble oils that are added to good antifreezes such as Prestone's brand aid in keeping your water passages rust free for the duration of the standard duty cycle specifed.

The ethelyne glycol never leaves but the rust preventative agents do. The constant heating and cooling in a way cooks those additives out so that's why it's necessary to replace the coolant at the specifed intervals. You may never have a problem with freezing but you will have dirty clogged water passages and rampant electrolosis going on in your radiator, heater core, etc. Those zinc anodes work pretty good in the radiator too but whoever the morons were that thought of it should have secured them with a piece of stainless cable.

I'd reccomend to anyone that hasn't serviced their radiator in a while to use at least two bottles of radiator flush (a good brand like prestone) to eat the corrosion out of their block and radiator and then flush with clean water and follow up with 50/50 or 40/60 water and coolant with rust inhibitors.

I know allot of folks think that if they do it now they'll only aggrevate the problem but to them I say this is wrong and you should get it now before you really get caught in a pickle.

If you do then it's not too hard of a job to fix them. I'd be interested to know just how bad the cracks are on yours and where they span. If you happen to pull the head and find more then please let me know.

I'm glad I posted about this! LOL!