No, I'm not on crack! I'm fixing that derned cracked 11mm block....

[maxfax]

SO it finally happened..  That 1.6 I've been nursing along with oil gushing into the coolant for darn near 2 years  burning WVO and WMO gave up..  Well not completely, the HG starting letting a bit of compression in the cooling system..  The dead giveaway aside from odd random overheating??   The coolant smelled like french fries!!    So I have a new engine I have been slowly putting together, the smart thing to do here woudl be get my butt in gear, put it together, and install it..   But alas this poor 1.6 and I have been through alot together..  Good times they were, I'm not ready to say goodbye just yet..   

I know this has been touched upon here before but in theory there wasn;t any real good solutions.. I considered using brass in the cracks, but getting the block hot enough to draw it in wasn;t happening..  So the plan, V the cracks right to where the threads begin (about 1/16" from the deck of the block)..   Fill aforementioned v's with nickel welding rods..  The next step will be to grind the weld down ALMOST flush with the deck, finish with a hand file, sanding block, and fiber polisher. Dremmel excess weld from bolt holes and passages..   After that slather any missed pits with good ole JB weld and polish again..   I have also started to file a small V in the cracks running down inside the coolant passages with a small triangular file..  I plant to clean what I can and slather som JB in those..   Before installation I'll be chasing the bolt holes with a tap, cleaning the heck out of them with solvent and compressed air, and installing the head studs with some sort of thread sealer (suggestions welcome on what to use).. 

Sorry I didn;t get too crazy on the photo documentary..   I didn't get pics of a dirty nasty cracked mess, and V'ed cracks..   I will get some more pics as I get hte weld cleaned up, or at least a finished product..   Did I mention I can't weld for crap??

[burn_your_money]

You're a brave man

[dennis]

Id be looking for an engine.

[maxfax]

Brave or crazy..  There's a fine line..     I have another engine just about ready to go..  But heck, worst case? I'll be out some fluids, a head gasket, and some time..  And I'll still have a junk engine...  If it works, my generator will run nicely..   Or should I taunt fate and throw a turbo at it??   

So here's a few pics of the initial grind down..





I had mentioned about using a file and sanding to get thinsg flatenned out..  Since nickel is softer than cast iron I opted to use this.


Worked dandy..  Held it flat to the block and it ground the nickel nice and flat with the cast surface.. The straight edge confirmed..  Sorry, I got impatient and didn;t get pics of this step.. But I do have this:




JB weld in place, all the little pits filled (and the accidental knick with the grinder at the oil passage  ) so now I wait........ The HG should be here by the time the JB weld is cured and sanded...

[8v-of-fury]

so it let go at what.. 4-5 places?

No offense Brett, but I'm going with Crazy over Brave. lol

Hope this works out for you. A turbo would probably be this things demise

[Turbinepowered]

Looks like a good candidate block for a 1.6 diesel dimensioned gasser. 

[veedubcanuck]

 Hey, I salute your work... It's your time to do with as you wish. If it's wasted oh well, atleast you tried. I would likely do the same since sometimes half the fun is doing the work even if it fails. ANYBODY can replace parts..... FEW can save them... 

[blackdogvan]

Awesome! Lookig at the pics I kept on getting flashes of all the "Assemble in a clean, dry place." instructions you always see in regard to rebuilding engines...

Redneck rebuild of the year contender.

[maxfax]

8 cracks in all to be exact.. I suspect if it fails, it will be the rear two bolts as those are the worst offenders..  This really isn't intended as a permanent fix, nor would I recomend trying it.. More or less it's a "what the heck" kind of thing..  Shame Prothe doesn;t have 1.5 gaskets, I'd go all out!!  (Yeah I guess I didn't mention, this thing is actually 1.5 block and head with 1.6 internals..  )

 The thing of it is, I have run this engine for almost 140K miles KNOWING all those cracks were there.. I smeared the threads of the head studs with hylomar when I installed them and it ran flawless for 30K miles..  After that it started getting oil in the coolant again till late this summer when that even stopped..    I think what got me in trouble is that I flushed the soapy water out and actually put antifreeze back in it the other week..  It wasn;t long till the oil returned then ultimatly a compression leak..

Before I smeared the jb weld on this thing I did intall an old head bolt and torque it to about 90 ft/lbs..  All the holes held..  

I need to tlak to the guys at the machine shop and see exactly what kind of rods those were they gave me, with my poor welding skills they welded nicely.. Good penetration and minimal spatter...  (Easy Jeremy, I know I used those two words  )..

I think I'll go finish putting that 12mm 1.6 together now, I might need it...

[fc steve]

My money would be a 59% nickel rod is what they gave u. Thats good for cast iron that will need machining. For things that dont need machining usually its 99%.

[maxfax]

Cleaned up the excess JB weld this afternoon (pics to come), the deck surace actually looks pretty darned good..   Called in a favor from the guys at the machine shop, and had one of the guys stop by after work with their more precision measuring instruments..  The worst area of the deck (#4 cyl towards the flywheel) checked out at around .002" from flat..  At that I'm going to stop grinding at it before I screw it up worse..    I should have my head gasket tomorrow.. My parts guy has one in some old inventory he's gonna give me (SCORE!  )..   IF all goes as planned I should know by Thursday if I need to retitle this thread as "Epic Fail" so that it can be shared on the Honda forums....  

[8v-of-fury]

I think if this does not work.. it will be a Heroic Fail.. as any sane person would have given up a looong time ago lol.

No reason why it can't hold up to another 40k lol

[745 turbogreasel]

I know a fellow whose outboard quit on him in the gulf.
He pulled the head, cut a page from a book into a head gasket, and motored back to shore.

[ToddA1]

I'm a bit confused....  if this works, you'll be pulling it to run a generator?

Are you planning on breaking the block down or will you just keep changing the oil to get rid of all the swarf?

-Todd

[maxfax]

The original plan was when the new engine was done swap it in there (Most of the time this car is my DD), and use this cracked motor on my welder/generator..  Even with the oil going in the coolant it would have been fine for the limited use it would get..  Since all this went down I'll probably try it out in the car for a few weeks just to see what happens (local drives of course)..    IF it lives a few thousand miles in the car it ought to be fine for a few hundred hours a year on a generator. The generator won;t be near the workout versus me driving it as it's now powered with a very tired 2 cylinder Wisconson..

I did actually plug the ports and cylinders with rags while I was griding/welding but I also pulled the pan and sprayed everything down with some petrolium based parts cleaner (looks and smells like off road diesel to me  ) just in case.... The worst part is going to be getting all the residual oil out of the cooling system..   I've been flushing the rad and heater core with hot water and degreaser and the goo keeps on coming..  THe bugger now is I forgot I had no extra injector hezat shields.. Gotta order some of those, and wait some more..  I guess this will give the hylomar plenty of time to set up...