Engine Block Repair Patch

Engine Block Repair Patch ENGINES Engines 34-5-36 Alan Easley felt responsible for a crack that developed in the block on his grandson Steven's Farmall C after he stored the tractor in an open shed one winter without checking the antifreeze. He had heard about engine block repairs and figured he and his son, Greg, could fix one, too. Fortunately the crack was in an easy place to get to on the water jacket. The Easleys cut a 2 1/2 by 12-in. patch out of 1/8-in. flat plate and heated it with an acetylene torch. They repeatedly bent it on a vise until the curve was the same as the block. They drilled 11 1/4-in. holes on the patch, marked them on the block and drilled holes to match and tapped the threads. Easley used a standard 3/8 variable speed drill and advises taking your time and not forcing it. "The metal on these old water jackets is pretty thin, so you don't want to apply too much pressure," he says. The Easleys ground a V in the block's crack, filled it with J-B Weld, applied a generous coat of high-temperature gasket cement and bolted on the patch with 1/4- by 3/4-in. stove bolts. "After about 100 tractor pulls and a lot of farm work the patch is still holding," says Easley. So, what would have happened if it didn't hold? "We would have had a junk block, which is what we had before we started," Easley laughs. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Alan Easley, 8300 E. Turner Farm Rd., Columbia, Mo. 65201 (ph 573 442-0678).

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