3 out of 4 ain't bad... isn't good either

[Pater]

about those valves

The consensus I've gathered so far is that both the valve and seat faces are supposed to be 45 degrees. The washing made the exhaust valve look burnt along about a 30 degree arc. This results in the head look out of round. I'd like to trim it up if I knew what the final diameter if the top of the valve head ought to be. If it turns out that there isn't enough meat to trim it back into round, then I'll buy a new valve and just lap it in. May I have the minimum spec. or am I wasting my time on a burnt valve? Thanks.

[sastanley]

Pater,
here is some info I grabbed off the cncphotoalbum.com site

Valve seat angle 45°

Valve seat width 1/32 in

Valve stem diameter .3115 in - .312 in

Valve stem / guide clearance cast iron guides: .003 in - .004 in (OEM guides are cast iron)

bronze guides in fresh water cooled engines with 180 thermostat: .0035 - .0045 in

Valve guide internal diameter .3145 in - .3165 in (see valve stem/guide clearance above)

Valve spring installed length - no cam lobe lift (intake & exhaust) 1.19 in

Valve spring length - cam lobe full lift (intake & exhaust) .94 in

Maximum cam lobe lift .239 in

Valve face angle 45°

[Pater]

Resource

Thanks for the lead to the C&C owners web-site. What a GREAT site. All of the spec.s I was looking for including valve head size. I will be buying a new intake and a new exhaust valve for the #1 cylinder rather than trying to trim the burnt one and only replace the bent one. You saved me considerable consternation. Thanks again. Pater

[sastanley]

Sure, pater...good luck and keep us informed of the progress!

[Pater]

Where there's hope there's... ARGH!

With the help of a friend who's a marine mechanic, the valve seats were "touched up" and I backed off the tappet adjustments then lapped in all 8. Cleane up, struggled with re-installing the springs and keepers (bought additional 'cause 3 went into the bilge under the engine). Cleaned again, stuck the two head gaskets together with "spray tack" and torqued the head down, put the gallery plate on then the manifold and when finished, hooked up the battery, connected the fuel line, and with the pump sucking water out of a 5 gallon bucket the engione started on the second try. I thought 'that's what it ought to sound like" Elated I packed up and drove home sunday night. Tuesday after work, my pal and I went down to adjust the carb, to get a decent idle and to tighten up some of the exhaust piping connections. The engine started right up and after 20 minutes, we had a nice smooth idle of about 750 RPM when we heard a gurgling sound, then saw white foamy goop flow out of the valve case breather onto the flame arrestor and the dipstick rise out of it's hole as white stuff flowed out.
We shut it off. Removed the spark plugs and found water in cylinder #3 plug.

I'm open for suggestions as to where to start looking.

[sastanley]

Aw, damn, Pater..that isn't good news. I would recommend a compression test first, to see what your numbers are. The hard part, and maybe someone else can figure out the difference, is where the water is coming from. I do not know the intricacies of the motor enough to determine which parts might be failing and allowing water ingress like that.

The water came out thru the breather, so we should assume it is getting into the crankcase? Is the oil milky?

[Mark S]

How many opportunities are there for water to get into a cylinder? Through the plug hole; through the valves from the exhaust manifold. That's it, right? Unless there's a hole in the side wall of the cylinder itself, which ought to be revealed by a compression test. Seems to be quite a lot of water if it raises the dipstick. This is beyond me.

Mark S

[Don Moyer]

Peter,

Congratulations on the great work you've done to this point, and we'll all keep our fingers crossed until you work through this water issue.

The fact that your engine ran so well on your first start-up and 20 minutes into the second run, even as water was obviously entering the crankcase in quite large amounts, is strong evidence that a leak of some kind opened up below the combustion chambers which would eliminate failures of the head, manifold, exhaust system, and a leak in the upper part of the cylinder walls themselves (above the area of piston travel).

Possible causes that meet your symptoms include a "pea-sized" hole opening up in the lower part of one of the cylinder bores, a 1/4" pipe plug leaking in the rear wall of the valve chamber - directly in the middle of the two center valve springs, or a leaky water pump seal if you have an older Sherwood or Jabsco water pump. I consider a leaky water pump seal to be the least likely cause based on the volume of water you seem to be talking about. Leaky water pump seals usually only result in small amounts of water entering the crankcase.

I'm attaching a guide that I hope will help you thorugh a rather simple pressure test of the block and head. The guide is written more from the perspective of a small water leak so you can skip through the part about changing the oil three times etc.

Good luck,

Don

[Pater]

Argh

I'm planning on heading over tomorrow morning to give the bad news to the "yard manager" that I won't be going in any day soon. Then I plan on taking off the carb, and manifold. I"ve picked up a pair of schrader valves in long stems That I'v put on a belt sander and taper ground to fit in the 5/8 hose barbs on both ends of the manifold. I have an air tank I'll fill to 80 lbs with my home compressor, and give the casting a charge after filling it with pink anti freeze (more visible?) my suspicion is I'm getting water into cylinder #3 either through injection (from the manifold) or from a cracked head (from around the spark plug) or from a poorly seated gasket. I'll check and replace the 1/4 in. pipe fitting at the back of the tappet gallery as Don suggests, I just keep thinking about that wet spark plug.

My other dilema is how to get this foamy gunk out of the engine! I tried pumping it out with my oil change pump through the dipstick tube but the foamy marshmallow like consistency was like trying to suck a really cold, thick shake through a narrow gauge straw. I stopped when the impeller plate got hot to the touch. I'll admit I used about half a 12 oz. can of WD-40 to wash down the sludge in the gallery before I took the valves out and most if not all of it went into the crank case with the oil from the third (cold) oil change. Again suggestions are welcome!

[Pater]

Once more to the breach!

I've read the manual through for the third time now and it finally hit me. After starting the engine the first time was I supposed to re torque the head to the final 30 lbs before starting it again? If so, I might have another point for the dilema. I didn't do that. When I went to Macushla today I checked the torque on all of the Head nuts and found three in the vicinity of cylinder #3 to be about 20-25 lbs. Cylinder #3 was the one that had a wet plug.
I think I have fried the impeller in the oil change pump trying to pump out the foamy water/oil emulsion. I put in two qts. of fresh oil and after cranking with the plugs out for a few seconds, Ive got a less sticky white goop, but it's at the top of the dipstick tube. there's got to be a better way to do this. Suggestions?

[roadnsky]

I think I have fried the impeller in the oil change pump trying to pump out the foamy water/oil emulsion. I put in two qts. of fresh oil and after cranking with the plugs out for a few seconds, Ive got a less sticky white goop, but it's at the top of the dipstick tube. there's got to be a better way to do this. Suggestions?

Pater-
I'd suggest you get Don's Oil Change Kit (Product No. - KTAS_05_90) and combine it with one of the Manual Oil Pumps like West Marine sells.
You'll get a lot more suction and there's no motor to burn out.
-Jerry

[Pater]

OK so that wasn't such a great idea after all!

After a lot of Rube Goldberg engineering, I found that a MacDonalds Thick Shake straw is large enough in I.D., small enough in O.D. and long enough to fit down the dipstick tube to the bottom on the Pan without disappearing. Then by wadding up a hose barb to the I.D. of my 2 gallon shop Vac's hose. and attaching the straw, I was able to evacuate over two gallons of the first white then tan then pink (yes MMO turns pink when emulsified with water) goop before finally hitting oil. When I reinserted the dipstick, it was a good inch above the full mark. That was Sunday afternoon. I plan on cranking the engine over to get a few sets of compression readings before I start taking things apart again. I'm hoping I haven't blown the head gasket by having those three head nuts under torqued. I'll let you know what I find.

[Pater]

Good news and Bad news

First the good, compression check showed 90 in cyl#1, 90 in #2, 65 in #3, 90 in #4, so the new valves, the grind and the lap job achieved something. (#1 was 0, #2 was 45 psi. The pressure test on the manifold held 40 lbs for over an hour. I pulled the head off and found the two gaskets that I had permatexed together then spray tacked together before installing had separated between #2. I re moved all of the studs, chased all of the threads with the appropriate button die, then re installed them with a good dip of Permatex #3 to 60 lbs. put the gasketset back on replaced the head, torqued it to 40 lbs and got 90 lbs in all four cylinders. Just Grand!
Then there's the bad: there's no water in the coolant jacket, and the block won't hold ANY pressure. I removed the manifold and the valve gallery cover and there's a nub in the block casting between the valve springs for #2 & #3 but no plug, rotted out or otherwise. When I pumped the bicycle pump, there was a distinct sound like blowing through a straw into a can coming from the crankcase up from the drains. When I removed the water-jacket plate on the starboard side, there was an accumulation of orange rusty goop at the aft end, but otherwise it looked pretty much as it did when I buttoned it up after washing it out last year. I vacuumed out everything I could then sprayed WD-40 into the area ahead of #1, it sat there. I sprayed a quantity into the space behind #4, and it sat there likewise. When I sprayed the space between #3 & #2, first it ran between the cyls, then disappeared. Using a dental pick, I scraped the space between #2 but found nothing on the cylinder walls or on the floor of the chamber, and the oil on the dipstick had the smell of WD-40, and a decided orange cast. My conclusion is there's a large hole on the port side of the jacket that's emptying into the case.
Well, there I am ladies and gents, open for your suggestions once again.

[Don Moyer]

Pater,

From your description, I would have to agree that there is either a hole in the floor of your water jacket or in the very lower part of cylinder 2 or 3.
Historical precedence would lead us to expect a pea-sized hole in the base of one of the two center cylinders. This distinction is important because holes in the lower part of cylinder bores are reparable by installing a sleeve, while a hole in the floor of the water jacket would be very expensive and not usually recommended.

Regrettably, unless I'm completely missing something in your report, the engine will have to be removed (at least into the cabin area) so you can remove the oil pan to make a determination of the exact location of the leak. We will then know what course of action is appropriate.

To repeat the obvious, we are all feeling your pain in discovering this issue in the aftermath of the great work you've been doing on your engine.


Don

[Pater]

Options?

Thanks Don,
The first Idea I had was to put a torch to the center cylinders to dry off the WD-40 then try to brush in several layers of epoxy filler if I could find the blessed hole. Try as I might there was no luck there.
Well the next idea that came to mind was to pull the engine out. Hoist it from the boat and investigate short blocks. (Don't know if I could stomach the frustration involved with a further rebuild, or the uncertainty of not knowing this would be the last major failure of this engine and losing another season!) I was "given" an older Atomic Four by a friend who moved to Florida. Older in that it has a generator, a dole thermostat in the aft end of the manifold jacket, and a prestolite distributor, along with a cast bridge bolted on between the head and the water jacket. It reminds me a great deal of the Universal Utility four I worked on when I was in my teens. Before I go into rebuilding it, I will pressure test the water jacket and the manifold. "Fool me twice shame on me."if I can find the serial # I'll be in touch. Thank you again for your help. P