Launchpad McQ's Catalina 30 Atomic 4 Saga

[Launchpad McQ]

Each of you guys hit the nail on the head. I'll try to get the next installment in tomorrow but in the meantime:

Did you pressure test the water jacket prior to disassembly (this saga has gone on so long I can't remember)? I ask because all too often we hear of guys jumping into disassembly and losing out on one of the most important tests that can be made.

No I didn't Neil and I absolutely should've. A Schrader valve, a cheap dial gauge, and bike pump might've saved me a lot of agony on this whole thing.

Wow! Isn't that a bummer? I'd be interested in hearing what the magnaflux guy has to say/suggests..
Looks like freeze damage from a poor winterizing job. Question now is whether to write it off or to try and save your investment. One plus is that it's in an area of low thermal/mechanical stress. A crack in the upper deck would be the kiss of death (perhaps that's the only area they looked at for the magnaflux?). My thought is that the crack could be ground out a bit then sil-brazed - but you'll want to get the opinion of someone who's tried such a fix (I haven't).
Another reason to go to glycol cooling!

Not to fear Al the saga with this block will continue so many more shenanigans to come. I too wondered how this crack developed. One of my coworkers is a flathead enthusiast/connoisseur (old Pontiacs mostly) and we discussed it ad nauseam. Given the location of the crack on the floor of the water jacket, he seems to think freeze damage too but I'm still curious how an engine sitting in the San Francisco Bay full of salt water would freeze, although I've spent many a night freezing my butt off in January with my little electric space heater struggling to take the edge off. I wondered if the time I overheated the engine from a plugged exhaust manifold water outlet elbow could've done it? Maybe running the engine so hard with the timing so hideously off and the engine knocking like crazy? I dunno.

Yeah, wouldn't the magnaflux have picked that crack up? Guess I'll just have to wait for the next chapter to find out what happened.

By the way, is that a YJ in the background? I'm doing a build up of a YJ in my shop right now.

You're right wristwister, the guy magnufluxing dropped the ball but more on that later. You can't see the headlights in the pic but it's a 1985 Jeep CJ-7 in the back. It was my best friend's car in High School and we used to drive up to the hills every weekend to "go camping" or at least that's what we told our parents we were doing with a gigantic Igloo cooler in the back and our girlfriends "meeting us for dinner" He finally sold it to me when I was a junior in college and I've been tinkering on it ever since.

[ndutton]

I'm trying to recall if we have EVER heard of a casting crack that didn't involve the water jacket and therefore would not be uncovered by a pressure test.

Can't think of a single one.

[Launchpad McQ]

As you can imagine, the sentiment I expressed in the last post was the G-Rated version of what actually came out of my mouth. I was shouting so loud, my wife heard me from inside the house, birds scattered, the neighbor kids went running inside, and pretty much the entire neighborhood learned the depth and breadth of my profanity vocabulary. I took a breath and realized nothing good could come from making an immediate phone call to the machine shop.

The next day I loaded up the block, drove up to the machine shop, and in as patient of a demeanor as I could muster, set the block on the counter and asked the machine shop owner what he thought happened. He took one look at it and his jaw dropped. "Oh man that's a crack. How on earth did we miss that!?" he said apologetically. I was relieved to see him seemingly at least half as frustrated as I was. He went back and talked to the tech who did the magnafluxing, and as expected, he admitted to only having examined the "common crack prone areas" which I would guess meant "just the top." He came back shaking his head, apologizing profusely. "I'll refund all your money right now if you want, otherwise if you bring me another block we'll do whatever it takes to get that block perfect, or if you really want, I'll send this block to someone I trust for the repair and cover the cost." The problem with option A & B was that I had already purchased all the new pistons, rings, crank, bearings etc that were "married" to the new measurements of this machined block and sourcing another block in Colorado was beyond unlikely. Shipping yet another questionable block into the state would just be cost prohibitive. The repair technique we discussed might be familiar to you guys but I had never heard of the terms "pinning" or "lock 'n stitching" so before I committed yet again to this motor, I wanted to research it. The combination of this YouTube video with it's upbeat and reasurring intro music and my Pontiac enthusiast friend were enough to put my mind at ease with this repair:

[YOUTUBE]Pq0wfU4ZaKk[/YOUTUBE]

I gave the shop the green light and a few weeks later I had the engine back:




Next Chapter:

"Where the hell in Oklahoma City did UPS send my camshaft and lifters? That address doesn't even exist!"

[chapster5]

Amazing, the stuff you learn on here!! Now to remember it should the need ever arise.

Chapster5

[Surcouf]

The video is impressive... I am having a hard time understanding how drilling the whole crack on 100% of the block thickness, and “filling it” with screws is a re-inforcement. Are the screws “interlocking” enough with their threads to re-create the strength of the metal?
Anyway, impressive.

I hope the repair will hold! Good luck!

[Don Moyer]

Lock-n-stitch

Surcouf,

The threads on the plugs used in Lock-n-stitch repairs are tapered and shaped such that (as they are tightened) they pull the crack together. The shape of the threads was described to us by Lock-n-stitch technical support folks as being like the cross section of a wave on the ocean just before it crests. During the repair, each new plug also overlaps the previous plug slightly so the shape of the threads also pulls the repair itself tight as it progresses. Don

[Surcouf]

Thank you Don.

This is really interesting. I have seen several “stitched” steam turbine casings around the world, with the classic 10” stitch added accross of the usual crack weld.
But nothing like this. I went to their website, and most of their pictures shows large marine engines, where removing the block is hardly an option, and so have the financial ressources to have such a repair technology developed.

The way you describe it is indeed what their drawings are showing.

This is something I will may be able to use in my work in the future... not on heavy industrial boilers, as it surely does not meet the appropriate section of the ASME code, but on gas engine generators.

[TomG]

Reading this thread is like when I discovered "Breaking Bad" on NetFlix. I just want to keep reading but I need to take a break every once in a while to hit the head.

(Someone is earning his PhD in the Universal Atomic 4.)

[Surcouf]

I just looked at the picture on a large screen and not a cell phone. Am I having visions or have they done it through the piston wall too? How would they even drill the block there? from the outside?
I love this thread!

[Launchpad McQ]

Hello again A4-ian crew. Sorry for the hiatus but as you'll see from the forthcoming post, a mental break from the longest-rebuild-in-A4-history has been much needed. I wish I had some upbeat news to share about the progress but I've gotta be honest, it hasn't gone well. Also, between two kids in diapers and a full kitchen remodel in progress, it's been harder and harder to find the time to write thread posts let alone work on the engine. So if you'll forgive me, I'm going to hit the fast forward button on this thread from the last post describing the crack repair (which took place in May 2019) and catch you up to where the rebuild stands at this moment (March 2020). I'll probably gloss over some things but if I'm ever going to bring this thread full circle, I've gotta start wrapping things up. Soooooo......

The UPS Disappearing Camshaft Magic Trick
Because of some pitting on the lobes, the machine shop recommended I send it to a camshaft-specific shop in Oklahoma for overhaul. I shipped it, but UPS delivered it to an address that doesn't appear to exist and it's never been seen since. (It's been over a year) Oh yeah, and all my lifters were in the box too which I didn't remember until I went to reassemble the engine months later and couldn't find them. "Hello Ken? Yep it's Jonathan. Yep now I need lifters in addition to that new camshaft I just bought."



Reassembly
I followed the Moyer Manual methodically and got the engine back together just fine. I checked, double checked, and took pictures as evidence/reminders of all the oil gallery plugs installed so I wouldn't fall victim to the dreaded "0 oil pressure after rebuild" that some folks have.



Initial Post-Rebuild Engine Run
Once again, following the Moyer Manual "Initial Start Up" section step-by-step, it fired up and ran as well as I hoped...with the exception of low oil pressure. The oil pressure registered over 40psi when "priming" the oil system per the manual, but after running for 20 mins or so, declined to below 10psi before I turned it off. I changed the oil from straight 30 weight oil to Rotella 15W-40 and ran the engine the next day. No difference in oil pressure.



Low Oil Pressure Mystery
With a new crank, rod bearings, main bearings, and seemingly no other culprit Ken, Don, and I suspected worn oil pump gears. I got the engine back up on the workbench, tore it partially down, and sent the rear main bearing cap out to Pennsylvania for testing & rebuilding. While waiting for the pump to come back I decided to do what I should've done before I ever ran the engine and plasti-gauge the rod/main journals. Once I got them apart, I found the #2 and #3 rod journals were badly discolored. I took the crankshaft to the machine shop and after measuring it, he diagnosed the damage as oil starvation from mis-sized crank journals (specifically .030 oversized instead of .010 as advertised.) I alerted Ken and Don of my machine shop's findings and they immediately sent a new (.010 over) crank and bearings while I sent the "20-minutes-old-but-trashed" crank back to them for investigation. Once they got the crank and were able to analyze it, their measurements showed .010 over (albeit damaged) rod journals and were unsure how my machine shop came to the .030 conclusion. We brainstormed for a bit and agreed that I should "cease-and-desist" on this rebuild until we were absolutely sure what caused the damage lest I destroy another perfectly good crankshaft/bearing set. During that brainstorm session I mentioned that somewhere in the shuffle of transporting the disassembled engine home in my suitcase, I had also lost my original main bearing caps. I reassembled the engine using the main bearing caps from the spare engine I had purchased off Craigslist (which was also the rear main cap/oil pump that I sent in for rebuilding). Little did I realize, the main caps are married to the block and therefore not interchangeable without machining, specifically line-boring. The use of mismatched main caps is currently our best hypothesis of why the engine exhibited such low oil pressure post-rebuild and subsequently damaged a brand new crankshaft beyond repair.



So Here We Are
As it stands today, the disassembled bare block is back at the machine shop getting measured for line-boring to correct the mismatched main bearing cap issue. I still owe Don a chunk of $$$ for the replacement crankshaft he sent me after having destroyed the first new crankshaft after 20 mins of run time. (Ken and I haven't caught up on the phone in a couple weeks but they know I'm good for it and they know where I live )

Needless to say that between a cracked block, lost-in-the-mail camshaft & lifters, misplaced main bearing caps, an expensive oil pump rebuild, a misguided spare engine purchase, and oh yeah, recently a new cylinder head, it's clear this rebuild has gone as sideways as one could go. For anyone considering an A-4 rebuild project, I really hope I haven't dissuaded them from taking on the challenge. I've learned a tremendous amount in the process, but also had more than a little bad luck and some setbacks caused by my inexperience and/or ignorance. In the same breath I would caution anyone from choosing to rebuild vs buying a short-block engine from Moyer on the notion that rebuilding will be cheaper. At this point I would've been way, way, money ahead if I would've just called Ken and had a short-block sent to the marina, and I would've been enjoying the boat years sooner. I probably won't update this thread very much until I (hopefully) get this thing machined (again), reassembled (again), and running (again). Between the kids, kitchen renovation, and work, It'll most likely be mid summer at the earliest.

[Ando]

Reading your saga brings back some not too distant memories (and stomach wrenching) and a possible glimpse into a not to distant future. I'll keep my fingers crossed (for the both of us). Thank you for contributing. "May the four winds blow you safely home again."

[Launchpad McQ]

If a picture's worth a thousand words....Picture Dump!

All dressed up and nowhere to go



When your neighbor buddies are sick of helping you lift a 400lb engine, $189 and a trip to Harbor Freight for an engine hoist will fix it. Back to the workbench for disassembly.



That's one fancy (but mismatched) rebuilt oil pump

[Launchpad McQ]

A smarter man would've recognized the different bevel between cap and block as an indication of a lurking problem. I'm not that smarter man.

[Launchpad McQ]

Did I ever mention that I had to buy a brake cylinder hone to enlarge the lifter bores after replacing the lost lifters with new ones? Well, I did. They wouldn't fit when I went to install them. See, I knew I was going to miss some things time-warping this thread to present day!

[Launchpad McQ]

Just so I don't temporarily end this thread on a "woe-is-me-debbie-downer-my-engine-rebuild-went-to-hell" theme, here's a couple pictures of a small cabin improvement I made. It's no showboat like Niel's Catalina 30 cabin but I've become somewhat of an LED strip light connoisseur. These were the 3rd iteration of the strip lights I installed. First was a white-only, non-waterproof, 3500k color, 3258 size strip (Diodes 32mm x 58mm). I didn't like "cold feeling" white so I ripped them out. Next I installed an RGB (red green blue) 5050 (50mm x 50mm size) waterproof strip but later decided I wanted the ability to do white after all and ripped them out. Last week I installed RGBWW (RGB+Warm White) strips and so far have the v-berth and above the toilet sections soldered in. I know its unrelated to the A-4 but sometimes you just need a win.



Cheers from Brisbane Marina, San Francisco