Corrosion block, ridge separated from block.

[mgraham49]

Owned boat (Pearson 10M) since 1975, A-4 has been flawless, other than a little underpowered. Did have a side plate rust out in the early 80s, a local shop replaced the sideplate as I remember (it has been a long time).

But in crawling around the engine with a flashlight and the mantra to get all grease off, I noticed that the is an area on the starter motor side of the block, below the plate, that looks like a little peak line of paint and grease sticking up, with a valley between it and the rest of the block. I am concerned to even try to chip it off, for fear I am only a few thousandths away from a leak in the block. I cannot tell if this is routine or terrible. I would upload a picture, but don't seem to be able to figure out how to do that from my computer.

Mike

[FelicityRebuild]

Chip Away.

That doesn't sound like anything I'm familiar with. I just went out and looked at my block and there's no line there, but if it were be, I'd rather find out the block is going to leak in the safety of a comfortable slip near my car than in a 40 knot wind with rocks bearing down on me in the pouring rain and my family aboard. If it is as close to a leaky block as you seem to think, it will happen and probably at the worst possible time too.

[hanleyclifford]

Sounds like it is time to have another look at that sideplate - and what lies beyond. Also there are drain plugs in this area that could be leaking. You did not mention whether you are experiencing a loss of coolant, or do you have salt water cooling?

[sastanley]

engine rust & corrosion

Mike,

When composing your message, you can use the "Manage Attachments" button in the "Additional Options" area. One issue is that most modern digital cameras simply have too many megapixels and the raw image file is very large in size, per picture..and you then can't attach it. I use a free program like paint.net or the Microsoft Powertoy called "image resizer" to dumb down my pics for posting.

As for the hunk of stuff, I think the block is fairly thick there. I had lots of grease and peeling paint and flakes of rust on mine, which I cleaned up.

You can see in this pic, that dark layer of stuff, in front of the accessory drive & under the side plate, flaking off in large chunks. I stole this pic out of my "old boat new owner" thread when I was a newbie to this thing in late 2008.


I'll try to see if I have an after picture of that area floating around too. A stiff brush, either with stainless bristles (the wooden handle kind that look like an oversized toothbrush) and sandpaper seemed to work best for me. I did a high-temp rust-o-leum type primer and "Orange Mist" Duplicolor, which I think is a Toyota paint.

edit - here is an after pic...as you can see, not the best, but I got rid of the rust..the "area" under the side plate is a little rough, but I don't think it is self-destructing any further.

[roadnsky]

Did have a side plate rust out in the early 80s, a local shop replaced the sideplate as I remember (it has been a long time).

But in crawling around the engine with a flashlight and the mantra to get all grease off, I noticed that the is an area on the starter motor side of the block, below the plate, that looks like a little peak line of paint and grease sticking up, with a valley between it and the rest of the block. I am concerned to even try to chip it off, for fear I am only a few thousandths away from a leak in the block. I cannot tell if this is routine or terrible...

Mike-
There is a "ridge" on that side which will gather grease, dirt, rust.
I agree with FelicityRebuild that you're better to attack it now than to wait for a lurking issue to decide for you what is the best time to get your attention!
Besides, if the last time that side plate was attended to was in the 80's, it is most definitely time to get in there.
IMHO...

Also, post some pics if you can. It really helps everyone "be on the same page" with theories and opinions.
IF you can't figure out the pic posting procedure, you can PM me and I'll get the pics and post 'em for you. No big deal.

[mgraham49]

OK, let me try this, may be too high resolution. But here it is with what looks like a crack, but may just be 35 years of sludge. This is starter motor side of engine.

[FelicityRebuild]

Looks like peeling paint or rust to me. Just scraped a lot of that sh*t off my engine a few weeks ago. I say scrape away and see what happens. Again, better to find issues now then when you need the engine.

[sastanley]

Jerry, why do you always have to one-up me with pictures of your beautiful pin-up motor when mine is looking all crappy?

Looks in that pic to be a little bit of 'delam', but I bet you can get to good material and then protect it with sealers/paints. Is that the starter over to the left???

You should see similar 'delam' in my engine block.

[mgraham49]

I have a new starter to install, so while it is off, I can get to the area to scrape and paint it. What kind of solvent, if any, do you use for cleaning.

[sastanley]

If I recall, I probably wiped it down with acetone after scraping, to get the dust off & prep the metal for painting.