Have located original block for a friends E-type. It is an R engine. There is a crack between cylinders number 4 and 5 and another between 5 and 6. Cracks are at centreline of bores. The machine shop is of the opinion it is possible to repair using new sleeves with possible less interference fit. and of course repairing cracks, pinning I guess. Would be nice to have an original numbered car, hence the effort to repair . Does anyone have experience having gone this route.? The matching numbered head is on the car.
Des Hammill in his XK engine books suggests stepped liners are usually a good repair, he recommends several other inspections not noted in FSM.
His book is now old and even then he said good blocks were hard to find
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Greetings All,
I understand the idea behind stepped liners but don’t understand why still doing this is popular. Replacing all liners with ones that have step machined into them makes machining the block annoying.
A “fire ring” much like diesels use, you know those things with 20:1 compression, sealing is pretty important to those.
A groove is machined into the top surface of each liner. A ring that is twice the depth is fitted into the groove. The protrusion does the same thing as machining the top hat as it seals the gasket.
Makes more sense than replacing six liners that you can’t deck in the future.
See the picture enclosed.
Here is a link to a page about cylinder liners and fire rings.
http://highwayandheavyparts.com/n-10874-broken-or-cracked-cylinder-liner-flange.html
You asked about experience with block repairs - I had a good result with a 3 1/2 pushrod engine. Back when I restored my 48 DHC, it had been allowed to freeze without antifreeze, which broke the water jacket away all along the exhaust side of the block. I had it repaired by a shop which was also doing big industrial castings like press bases. They removed the side of the block, cleaned it up, brazed the cracks, heat treated for stress relief, then sleeved all 6 cylinders. I drove that car for several years showing it all over the Midwest and never had a problem. I’m a mech engineer, and agree with the comments here about various sleeving methods. I’d go the simplest. XK engines are not highly stressed. Dave