Cracked? Useable?

caseman-d · Apr 22, 2011

Working on a farmall 400 engine. Started out it had a knock and found piston ring broke and some how got hast the wrist pin and gouged the sleeve. I replaced the piston, sleeve and rings. When I honed out the other sleeves I found number 3 looked like it had a crack in it. I pulled the sleeve and found what looked like a crack in the block.
Picture one kinda shows it.

I attempted to trying some loctite lose fit sealant. In this fruitless attempt I cracked the sleeve installing it and pulled the sleeve pack out, hone the cylinder wall and found which looked like a bigger crack else where to the right of original crack.

After looking at the pictures myself I am beginning to wonder if the crack maybe some of the loctite not completely honed off. Since this is a dry sleeve application do you think a new sleeve would solve my problem.

rhtx55 · Apr 22, 2011

Sorry to be the one with such bad news, if it were mine I would tear it back down, strip the block, have it tanked, and then magnafluxed to check for any more cracks, once they have all the cracks identified and possibly fixed, the bores can be machined for oversize sleeves to use your present pistons, or you can go with bigger sleeves & matching pistons to match if you wanted to bump up the HP a bit.
A salvage block to replace it with would be another option, but you would need to check it for cracks first also, unfortunately, either way, you are back to square one.

Janicholson · Apr 22, 2011

Cracks like those can and do cause water leaks down between the sleeve and the block casting into the oil pan. The situation is now a decision between getting a replacement block, or having it bored to receive a repair sleeve, then rebored to accept the normal dry sleeve, or thinner sleeves to make it displace the same as a Super M. If it is already using the Thin sleeves, no issue doing one hole, but it does require tear down for machine work, as noted in the other post.
A very modest sanding of the cast bore is OK, honing is almost never done as the bores are often looser than desired when refit with sleeves.
Sleeves need to be chilled and block warmed , then usually driven in with a block of wood after slipping in 1/2 to 2/3 of the way pretty easily.
A different block might be a better option in this case. Jim

Cracked? Useable?

caseman-d

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rhtx55

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Janicholson

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