unpleasant surprise

i have a couple of engines i picked up with an eye to rebuilding. one was seized so that is the one i am opening up. at the moment i am mainly interested in the head as i want a recon one, and thankfully that looks salvageable if crusty. so far i havent seen any signs of cracks anyway. that is not the bad bit though. i knew it wouldnt be too nice but the blocks looks bad. it is seized tight enough that i got the main nut cracked without any restraints on the pistons. this is what i found, and bear in mind that this is exactly how it looked as i lifted the head off. i just walked away at that point.
so i am guessing that this level of nasty would require at least a professional grind out to make it serviceable. i havent measured it yet so i dont know if its already oversize. i will get in there and clean it up enough to measure but by the looks of it i am expecting some pitting to be under there. i am certainly not encouraged by the one cylinder holding water for who knows how long. i dread to think what the crank could look like, cant tell how much water may have gotten down there.
any ideas on how to proceed? i would hate for it to end up as scrap.

I don't think it's that bad. Drop the sump and have a look, it'll probably better than you think. I've had worse motorbike engines and got them back to life. Second hand engines seem to be going for a lot of money these days so you've nothing to loose. Plus, it's fun stripping an engine.

Col

Seen & rebuilt much worse than that, just depends on if it has already been bored out or not. You can go +60 thou but +20 will probably sort it

+40 at least looking at the rusty one +20 is only 10 thou a side and from experience its seldom enough for water damage , though you can fit new liners a begin again at std

christofloffer said:

i have a couple of engines i picked up with an eye to rebuilding. one was seized so that is the one i am opening up. at the moment i am mainly interested in the head as i want a recon one, and thankfully that looks salvageable if crusty. so far i havent seen any signs of cracks anyway. that is not the bad bit though. i knew it wouldnt be too nice but the blocks looks bad. it is seized tight enough that i got the main nut cracked without any restraints on the pistons. this is what i found, and bear in mind that this is exactly how it looked as i lifted the head off. i just walked away at that point.
so i am guessing that this level of nasty would require at least a professional grind out to make it serviceable. i havent measured it yet so i dont know if its already oversize. i will get in there and clean it up enough to measure but by the looks of it i am expecting some pitting to be under there. i am certainly not encouraged by the one cylinder holding water for who knows how long. i dread to think what the crank could look like, cant tell how much water may have gotten down there.
any ideas on how to proceed? i would hate for it to end up as scrap.

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Plenty of life in that yet. Dry it out and pour oil in the bores, wait a bit and it may free up. Rebore will deal. Crank will be ok too, may require a regrind, but the journals may have been protected by the crank shells, Just lubricate everything, and take it apart and have a look.

As above Chris. It's amazing what can be salvaged. It's not really a question of can it be saved, it definitely can, but rather it's a case of how much you want to spend on it. By the time you've had a re-bore done, oversize pistons, new gasket sets, maybe new bearings, possibly a re-grind on the crank. It all adds up to a hefty amount. Given that you got the engine as a spare and you also have a better one, I'd maybe be inclined to take off what you need and salvage what you can from the rest to sell or keep as spares.

edit: strip it first of course to see wgat you have before making decisions

well the cost is where it boils down most of the time. if the other one would need the same kind of work then i would get the worse one up to scratch but given that the other one is at least still turning i would expect it to be better.
anyone have any ball park ideas on what kind of money a rebore/liner may cost? i have not had any experience with having that sort of work done at all so i dont have any basis to work on. if it did have to go oversize, would i need new pistons and rings to suit, and are they much more expensive? i am planning on replacing them anyway of course but if non standard is significantly more expensive then it may affect the work i get done.

christofloffer said:

well the cost is where it boils down most of the time. if the other one would need the same kind of work then i would get the worse one up to scratch but given that the other one is at least still turning i would expect it to be better.
anyone have any ball park ideas on what kind of money a rebore/liner may cost? i have not had any experience with having that sort of work done at all so i dont have any basis to work on. if it did have to go oversize, would i need new pistons and rings to suit, and are they much more expensive? i am planning on replacing them anyway of course but if non standard is significantly more expensive then it may affect the work i get done.

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theres no point in fitting new pistons and rings unless bores are good , a rebore is around 150 fitting liners probably twice that pistons 10-25 a piece with rings

Place local to me was £50 per cylinder, then the cost of pistons, rings etc. Thats why I'm not bothering with my 19j.in the 90. Im just going to fit a new engine

Erubus said:

Place local to me was £50 per cylinder, then the cost of pistons, rings etc. Thats why I'm not bothering with my 19j.in the 90. Im just going to fit a new engine

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You might get a bit better than that if you shop around. If I was going to fit a new engine in a Ninety, I would go 2.5 petrol or V8, unless I was planning huge mileages.

My guess is the Govt. will turn up the pressure to get rid of diesels over time.

Erubus said:

Place local to me was £50 per cylinder, then the cost of pistons, rings etc. Thats why I'm not bothering with my 19j.in the 90. Im just going to fit a new engine

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The problem with this getting a good replacement engine. Unless you have access to a known good one, buying a second hand engine is a bit risky, how do you know it is any better than what you already have. I think £200-£300 is a good price for a good rebore with new pistons. I haven't seen a second hand engine foe sale for less than £500 for a while. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places.

Col

i am not messing about with a new engine again. i have not long converted it back to petrol and i managed to pick up a 2.25p for £50 and got it running with fairly minor work. it is just tired and is only meant to work as a gap filler while i get a proper military unit really tidy and plonked in. i want to get a unit in there which is going to be good and solid for years to come and the best way to get that is to rebuild one so that i know what has been done to it.

It's horses for courses. £200-300 for a rebore and pistons and then all the other bits, new bearing shells (for my 19J at least) a complete set of gaskets for the whole engine. head rebuild kit. possibly a new flywheel, although I might be able to get away with re-facing it on the lathe. One of the cylinders has a chip out of the bottom which is likely to cause a crack to spread. I havent even looked at the camshaft. We're talking probably £500-600 and a huge amount of time and all for a 19J which is a terrible engine. A fairly ill thought out over-development of an engine pretty much from the fifties. Quick look on ebay has a 19j plus gearbox for £300, a block for £100 and a couple of others. Thing is, you can come across engines for very little or even free by being members of clubs etc or just knowing people with landies. It's the way I usually get parts to be honest. Yesterday i got a pair of station wagon sides and a drop down tail gate for my s3 for a tenner for instance.

For Chris, he has a series truck with a series engine. He wants a good reliable 2.25 petrol engine, that is original to the truck and will last for another 40 years. In his case it's entirely feasible to spend that sort of money and time on it. That said though, he has two engines and the other one isn't seized so this specific engine - if it were my decision - is only any use for spares. The rest of it is totally salvageable of course and can be sold/given away/rebuilt/scrapped as he sees fit.

been giving the head a good scrub and check and thankfully that looks like it is not too bad. the ports are quite grotty but the bits i could get to didnt suffer from much solid stuff so they should clean out ok. curiously, when i was removing the valves i see that there are no valve seals at all, not even a trace of them. main thing is that i couldnt find any cracks and the oil/water ports dont look like there is any more than surface crud in there. i will be getting ion touch with turners soon i reckon and send them some photos to see what they think.
so i will be looking at the block next. i am not looking forward to what i may find as it is increasingly clear that this engine has been opened up then plonked back together and abandoned. still with luck its shouldnt be anything that the major work wouldnt take care of anyway. i have so far not actually put an block back together again, i have dismantled a couple after finding serious damage but never stripped and refitted. what sort of parts will be fine to scrub up and re-use? (e.g tappet sliders etc) would conrods be fit for use again if there is no cracking and the bushes are still present? any parts which are best being thrown out for the sake of reliability later? a couple of big concerns are the timing gears and the camshaft, if they have gotten nasty then i am guessing they will be a replace job regardless?

Timing gears should be ok if they still have all their teeth, conrods too should be ok if they are not bent. Everything else depends on the amount of wear or corrosion. It's easy to see if the camshaft lobes are worn, hopefully that will be ok but I would change everything between the pushrods and the camshaft, e.g. Cam followers. If you do change the camshaft, it might be worth considering a performance one but only if the engine is a 5 bearing one. Hopefully the crankshaft will be ok but I'd change the main bearings and the big end bearings. And of course all the seals.

Col