I'd be interested to see how long this fix lasts. I have no tick (now that my sparkplugs are tight) but then again I'm lucky enough to have a relatively new shortblock from the supplier who bought the tooling from LR which hopefully means I never will. For people that do, I hope this fix lasts for the lifetime of the motor but I'm wondering if the liners will be able to handle the concentrated stress associated with being held in place by one or two pins. They will certainly see quite a bit of cyclic loading and thermal changes which is a great way to induce fatigue. Ductile iron is pretty tough stuff, but I'm not sure if it is tough enough.

Has anybody had pinned liners in service for a while?

 

The worse that'll happen is that the liner will break under the pins, but I honestly can't see it happening. There is not that much force involved, and so long as there is no movement between liner and pin, then this is unlikely to start being a problem.

Two pins is definatey a more belt-and-braces approach, but I'd personally be happy throwing one pin in there and having a quiet motor. We know that eventually the liner punches through the firing ring and this does result in a bigger problem. Preventing this from happening ( and eliminating the noise ) by pinning would no doubt result in a greater long-term reliability than doing absolutely nothing.

The stock liners are not ductile iron BTW - they are totally brittle.

 

My mistake - they are centrifugal spun cast iron. Very much not ductile.

 

Ive run the truck 8 more hours with no return of knocking. Idled for 4 hours straight, no noise. I cranked it up two days straight outside the shop and let it run steady while working. Music to my ears. Its made my other creaks, squeaks, and vibrations more audible and thus caused more concern within other reaches of the vehicle. We will start working on those things next. As I said earlier, if one doesnt hold each sleeve, I will add another and we will know what cylinders require extra retainers at that point in time. Until then, one per cyl. is enough for my trail rig and better than none at all.

 

Sorry for the late reply. Mine "hammers" is more like it. It is crazy loud. Only when it warms up. Only when it idles. Rev it to 1200 or so and it is quiet as a lamb. Oil presure is great. Took the IM off a couple weeks ago and replaced the lifters. No improvement.

 

And to add, sounds alot like the 2 in the vids in this thread.

 

toad2 - one idea is that the sleeve, when slipping, can't keep up with the reversing piston. So as rpm increases, it can't travel all the way to "clink" before it is headed the other way. So it quiets down as rpm gets above a certain point.

 

Ya, that kinda makes sense. I bought an oil pan gasket when i bought the lifters so i can have a look. Do you think you could tell if the sleeves were moving from the bottom? Would you be able to move them? Could buddy who did this first slide the sleeves a little before he pinned them? Maybe he already said and i missed it?

 

I'll let others comment. Here's the view up the oil pan. And a view from the top.

 

The sleeves ALWAYS seem to end up resting in the "correct" position (i.e DOWN). No-one has ever said they've had them sticking up out of the block when pullin heads.

The liners can also only ever be moved when the block is over 170-ish degree F, so unless you are working in a very hot garage, you'll not be able to move them while working on the motor.

Finally, for the love of God, do not try to crimp them. They are as ductile as glass, and will break, not bend. A pin (or two - LOL) is the only thing guaranteed to hold the buggers in place.

As told by the guys who've done it already, to do it from the bottom, you don't even need to pull the heads.
That said, I had a PM from a guy who had pulled his heads, and on seeing the grooves in the firing rings on the gasket, decided to try pinning from the top. He stuffed tissue everywhere, drilled, tapped, and ground the head off so the pin was outside of the cylinder diameter, and it worked perfectly. Just make sure you do this above the (obvious) lines where the top ring travels to...