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I picked up my block about 3 weeks ago from the shop - had Darton sleeves installed. I put the block, crank, and parts in the back of my rover for the past 3 weeks. Busy with work... didn't think twice. I'm in the northwest, so there has been heavy rain and cold. I took the block out today to find that all the sleeves have a good amount of rust on them. Crank as well.
I'll call the shop on Monday to see what to do ... but hoping someone has an idea of what I'm in for.
My first thought would be some fine steel wool with some mineral spirits followed by some motor oil on a shop rag will fix that right up. Looks pretty superficial at this point. I am however not a machinist, or even a professional mechanic, so I may completely wrong...
Now you know not to leave freshly machined steel parts unprotected, but don't worry take them back to the machine shop, they should be able to polish crank journals, & also clean the insert bores with light ruffening it up, they may or may not need to take a little off the top of block, depending how deep the rust is, (if you are lucky enough it might just need a light cleaning,) meanwhile use some heavy oil & oil the hell out of all steel parts so it doesn't rust any more till you take it to machine shop, don't try to clean the crank yourself , let the shop do it, after investing the time & money you want it done right,
Thanks. That's my thought as well... take it to the shop and have it done right.
I have a bigger problem now though. I was doing a parts inventory and found the bag of o-rings for the top hat sleeves. The sleeves were shipped directly to the Machine Shop... so he must have overlooked them. Fantastic. I'm going to email Turner and find out what needs to be done. If the sleeves can be re-used or what.
Wow, not installing the o-rings is a huge dropped ball by your machine shop. Half the reason to use Darton over other liner companies like LA Sleeve is the o-rings. I'd be PISSED.
Wow, not installing the o-rings is a huge dropped ball by your machine shop. Half the reason to use Darton over other liner companies like LA Sleeve is the o-rings. I'd be PISSED.
Agreed... Richard Turner from Turner Engineering got back to me (amazing service to respond in a few hours on a weekend!) and said the same. The o-rings should have been fitted. I shipped the order directly to the machine shop along with quite a few other parts and he must have overlooked the o-rings. 95% of the sleeves he does are LA Sleeves, so I guess he forgot. But that also means he completely ignored the instructions that were provided with the sleeves as the o-rings were wrapped inside the manual.
Ugh. Well I will call them tomorrow to figure out next steps. I think I trust this shop, but the thought of having them redo all their work for free + sleeves makes me a little uneasy. But its my only option.
I guess the good news is that I should be getting brand new rust-free sleeves as Turner says they cannot be re-used.
The other thing I was uneasy about were the freeze plugs. I asked Turner:
4. Machine shop heavily insisted on not replacing the freeze plugs as they are very hard to re-seal on aluminum and are better left un-touched. Is this right?
Turner: Leaving them in place would entirely depend upon the internal condition of the old plugs. If they are not corroded which you cannot tell until removed, they would be ok. If they are corroded and sufficiently inhibited with a good mix of antifreeze (Ethylene Glycol) no further corrosion will occur. I suspect that they will find changing core plugs they have no specific tooling for is something they do not want to get involved with. If the correct type of sealer is used the plugs will seal.
Since I had the block decked, I guess it will need to be decked again along with the new sleeves? Is this a problem? I can't imagine its a good thing to keep popping sleeves in and out... I attached the bill of work from the machine shop in case anyone has any thoughts
Here's the technical response from Richard regarding the o-rings if anyone is curious
1. Machine shop forgot to install the o-rings for the Darton Sleeves (LR Discovery 2 v8 4.0L). I haven't talked to them yet, as its Saturday . What's my damage here? Can the sleeves be re-used?
Can we assume that the machine shop was provided with the o rings and the fitting instructions. To that end they should have been fitted.
Clearly if there are no cracks in any of the bores then there is nothing for the o rings to do. However it is not impossible that the parent metal behind some of the liners may crack in the future. The probability of coolant water leaking out of the bottom of the cylinders is low although not unheard of. If you have provided product with clear instructions to the machine shop then it should have been done. The intended purpose of the liners is to repair cracked cylinders by way of converting the engine to what is effectively a wet liner or insure against problems in the future.
If you remove the liners and refit they will not retain the shape and geometry due to the fact that they are stressed by interference fit and then machined accordingly. I think you could reasonably ask the machine shop to buy another set of liners and fit as per the fitting instructions. Alternatively pressure test the block and determine whether there is any leakage behind any of the liners. Any bubbling around the bottom of the liner would be unacceptable, any leakage at the top does not matter as it is sealed by the head gasket.
Rust on freshly machined top hat block ... (pics)
