After watching this I understand now how easy is it for a cracked block to develop wow
and that top hat liners have nothing to do if s block will crack or not

I’m looking at a possible oil pump or worse bearings
if bearings I don’t think I wanna spend the money rebuilding a piece of junk block like this
if one day I decide to go with a Atlantic British block I hope they at least machined it correctly

 

I mean how in the hell does quality control not see the way these blocks are coming off the assembly line

 

@redwhitekat yup old tech no precision, really this is nothing new for a 50 year old engine design, iron blocks had similar issues Over boring did not help as well as sloppy quality control, but the reality is an aluminum tube does not just crack.

A couple of possible causes :

1. the wrong coolant , some anti freezes will attack aluminum cause oxidation and attack the aluminum creating weak spots.
2. Over pressure from overheating will then further weaken those areas
3. Overheating can also cause stress cracking

It really is a simple a maintenance particularly of the cooling systems and use of the correct anti-freeze, my bet is there are a lot fewer cracked blocks than people think, I am not say there are none by the way it does happen, I just think there are fewer.

 

I got one of the replacement 4.6 blocks in '07... Because my truck developed a loud tick literally after driving it off the dealer lot. They said it was the '03 issue and it was under warranty so free new engine... At the time I felt pretty good about getting a brand new engine in my new to me 4 year old truck. After about 160k miles and one head gasket job that engine developed a cracked block. I don't think highly of the replacement blocks they offered, probably the last off the line and the worst tolerances. The installing dealer broke it in with thin synthetic oil. It burned a quart of oil every 1000 miles for all of those 160k miles. Never ran Dexcool... Never overheated but did have a broken oil pump once and a ruptured front cover gasket once. HG's went out at about 100k on it. Really pretty normal block as expected except it started bubbling coolant into 5 without ever overheating.

Thats my story and I'm stickin to it.

 

@Dave03S That is my bet on most of the cracked blocks - casting Q/A was really bad. We call them Friday parts around here, guys just want to go home and coast.

 

I thought the Top hat liners were to fix the slipping sleeve issue.

also, I am hoping Turner discerns between good and bad castings so i am cool!

 

I think the blocks from turner and Atlantic British are used blocks from rovers. I wonder if someone can ask this question

 

I have no personal experience with this but "they' also say top hat liners, with proper O rings also can fix the cracked block by making in effect a wet liner. Cost is around $1500 before shipping... I opted to go for a rebuilt RR P38 4.6 instead.

 

@Dave03S that is my plan I have been looking for one at a wrecker, hard to find up here though