Houston, we have a problem!!!! Cracked cyllinder

If you go to my last thread,

http://www.oilburners.net/forums/showthread.php?t=39118

you will see the effort and troubleshooting I went through to get to where I'm at. Curiousity killed the cat and I pulled the head off tonight. I was hoping to find a fault in the head gasket but didn't happen like that. I then rotated the #4 cyllinder to BDC and found what seemed to be a gouge in the wall. After cleaning it up I noticed it was a rather long crack that the pics do not do justice to.

Now the Logger will be downed longer than expected because the spare motor will require a new level of freshening up. Oh well, at least the spare is there and paid for.

It was at least encouraging to see that the gasket held up to 14-15 psi of boost and at times towing a 22,000lb trailer.

That is murky water laying in the rockers and note the discoloration of paint indicating some heat on the exhaust side. Never saw more than 1100deg and only that for a very short time. Probe is on the up pipes.

Spare motor is coming out soon!! I might just run it natural and find a block to build up with studs and other goodies. Turbo was put on in '92 so it probably should be gone over as well.

I can't believe that cyllinder made 245psi of compression!!!

You already got it apart --- sleeve all eight and be new again.

That blows!

Wow that sucks.

How are the heads?

Is your spare motor a 6.9?

For my 2 cents I would build a 6.9 with studs and leave the cylinders issues behind you. I got my ARP studs from Summit Racing for $260.

How does the spare motor look inside? Are the bores good? Any slop in the rod bearings? Maybe just do a valve job and studs if the bottom end is cool. Then use your same IP and turbo and its back in the hammer lane.

I don't think I'd spend thousands to re-sleeve it, if it is even possible with the crack.

Too many cheap blocks out there to be had without cracks.

Check that rod for straightness - she probably sucked in some water and could very easily bend the rod.

Ah man that sucks. Sleeving that block would be my last option, if only because to do it right, you'd need to sleeve all 8 and that would cost at least 500-1000 bucks. Worse, many machinists really don't know how to do dry sleeves, and you can do all that work and spend all that money and have it fail. Your best and cheapest option is probably to check your spare 7.3 very thoroughly for signs of cavitation or block damage. If there are none then just replace pistons, rings, bearings and headgaskets and call it good. Just don't fall down on SCA maintenance. I recommend ELC so you don;t have to think about it, others will disagree..... Second choice is find a 6.9, would probably be a sturdier build if you could do the head studs, and no more worries about cavitation.

Any used block is going to have twenty-plus years of corrossion on the un-seeable side of those shiny bores.

That corrossion may come through two weeks or twenty years after a simple rebuild.

A proper re-lining will give everything a fresh start.

Nothing good is cheap.

Cheap is often expensive.

have the other block and heads magnafluxed to check for cracks also. if it does i would just look for a good running motor to replace the junk one. do a reseal kit(entire motor front and rear seals, timing cover, valve covers, and maybe headgaskets....

Hell just spend the money and fix this one ,, you can get a master kit for about 1800$ and then just have the a machine shop put the sleeves in for you you can even order and upgrade kit that is .30 over and really make this motor run ... so my point is spend the extra money and know what you have

Guys.... This cracked block is junk. Sleeving it will not "fix it". The crack will still be in the original bore and weaken the block integrity. Sorry for the bad news but just start over with a known good block....

icanfixall said:

Guys.... This cracked block is junk. Sleeving it will not "fix it". The crack will still be in the original bore and weaken the block integrity. Sorry for the bad news but just start over with a known good block....

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Good advice

You should be cool if you throw your spare motor right in. If the spare has not wormed thru yet, and your running the SCAs, you should be good to go. That will give you plenty of time to build another motor if that is what you are wanting to do.

Never saw more than 1100deg and only that for a very short time. Probe is on the up pipes.

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If that probe was in the exhaust at #8 , I'd bet it would see 1500*+ @ 4500 RPM. Just my thought's.

Is'nt this near you Goose?

http://delaware.craigslist.org/pts/1689435025.html