Broke my block

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Joined
Apr 27, 2012
Messages
4,765
Reaction score
102
Location
Nashville, Tennessee
My Car
1973 Q code Mach 1
I took my car for a short drive Friday and heard a bang and something bounce off the underside of my car.  Stopped and went into the street to see what it was.  Found that I had broken the corner off of the block above the starter right through the dowel pin hole.  I am fairly confident that it can be welded up by the right person and I have found someone that is reputed to be very good at this repair.  Luckily he is friends with 2 of my friends.  Unfortunately he is backed up 3 weeks and then going on vacation, so it looks like the summer is over for driving my Mach 1.

Why did it break?

Well I have 2 theories which I think explain it. 1)  During the machining of the block, it had to go back when it turned out that it needed to be line honed.  While loading it,  I fell and the block hit the ground.  There was no visible damage, but I suspect it was damaged then.  2) The lower bolt for the bellhousing was not there when it failed.  It was there, but somehow it was not when the failure happened.  Perhaps not properly torqued? Anyway, what is done is done and if it can't be fixed, I have 2 more blocks to work with and have machined to fit my rotating assembly.

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Wow. Bet that sounded awesome. I can remember when I threw a rod. I was just getting ready to open her up and BANG! It was all over...and yes this is a car story! Turns out the piston pushed the valve right off the rocker and bent inside the head. The rod arm whipped around and cracked both sides of the block and put two holes on either side of my oil pan causing complete carnage. Hope you got some good cruise time in. 

 
Man, that sucks.

Depending on how the repair is done and knowing that there's a spare block available I'd be tempted to go that route right off the bat...

 
That can be welded if the guy knows what he's doing. Cast can be a bitch to weld but its doable. Depends on the porosity of the casting and how much iron content is in the block. I would pull the motor out of the car.  Put it on a dolly or work bench. You need to clean the shit out of the area to be welded and the piece. Need to then heat up the piece and the area to be welded with a torch. I would also grind a taper on the piece and the block. Preheating is your friend with this. Best way would be to tig weld since you can concentrate your heat much better than stick welding. I would use a high content nickel rod. If you cant get it tig welded you can always stick weld it. Same process with cleaning and preheating, but the stick welder is harder to contain the heat. I have had decent luck using a stainless steel rod when stick welding a block.  If you take it to someone that knows how to weld good, you shouldn't have any trouble fixing that right up. 

 
^^^ What he said!

When the transmission in my '80 CJ-7 grenaded, it took a couple of the 'dog ear' bolt holes off the transfer case adapter.  I found one, but another was MIA, along with a portion of a third one.  An oilfield specialized welding shop said they could fix and only charged me something like $30.  As well, the engine block of my '85 Nissan King Cab 4x4 had a straight-up divot between 3 & 4 on the head mating surface.  The machine shop I took it to was able to fill in the divot, re-deck it, resurface the head, and only charged me $60 for all that.

All is not lost! 

 
I have found a machinist that can do the repair, but he is at least a month out.  Plenty of time to pull the engine.  In the meantime I'm going to look at my two spare blocks and see which one looks like the best candidate for the job.  one is a DOAE-j and the other is the more common D2.  Have to pull the pans and see if either is a 4 bolt main, but if not a 2 bolt is just as strong.  Both turn freely and one is a short block with good looking bores,  the other is a complete engine in which I expect to find a mouses nest in the # 4 cylinder as it felt spongy when turning over and there was some nesting material in the bellhousing and the end of the exhaust manifold on the passenger side.

Now a teaser for something different  My chopped to 29 with an engine in the proper location (but lower than it will actually sit by about 6 inches)

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Wow. Bet that sounded awesome. I can remember when I threw a rod. I was just getting ready to open her up and BANG! It was all over...and yes this is a car story! Turns out the piston pushed the valve right off the rocker and bent inside the head. The rod arm whipped around and cracked both sides of the block and put two holes on either side of my oil pan causing complete carnage. Hope you got some good cruise time in. 
Not near enough 😞

It was a bang and a thump 100 yards from my destination.  Glad I walked back and found the part or the block would be a total loss.  Either way I'll pick the bast block I have and have it machined 95% to keep as a spare.

I am building the 29's engine, but the block is at the machinist for the 1 piece rear main seal conversion until August-I might use that block as I have already done the oil restriction mods and reamed the lifter bores for sleeves. Waiting for the final cleaning until all is done.  The Wydendorf kit worked well for reaming them out and was less time consuming than expected.

I guess the good thing is that I actually like building engines, just wish it was a little less expensive sometimes.

 
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