I finally removed this old dog from my '68 442 convertible ----- making room for the rebuilt '67 E motor .

I noticed this ugly crack drivers side at the freeze plug. Car died in 1985 from a blown head gasket…not sure if this is related or not. I'll pull the heads next week and see how ugly the old rusty cylinder is.

Any idea if this is fixable? I'm going to keep this engine for #'s matching value…if block is toast maybe not.

Any thoughts ideas would be appreciated.

 

That's imo probably from a freeze cycle, don't know if that's repairable.

 

Funny- this car sat in Grass Valley for almost 10 years,then moved to Orangevale and then I found it.

 

Plenty of cold weather here a few years ago it got down to like 15 degrees i had frozen pipes.And no water for morning shower.

 

Wow, that looks just like the original G-block in my 69.

Yes, that's repairable. It's not structural, just a sealing weld. There are a lot of very complex processes available for fixing blocks like this. Me, I just go to the guy in town who's been repairing farm equipment for the last 30-40 years. He uses nickel rods and stick welds cast iron, no problem. Fixed a broken cast iron drill press base for my about a decade ago and it's still working fine.

 

If there is a freeze crack there you should look the block over well to be sure there isnt any others beside the obvious one.

 

Good news to me
I have an E400 block that has such a crack.
Too rare to scrap...
Anyone want to adopt it and start the fixing?

 

Yep, had a welder/machinist friend stick weld up a broken cast iron blade roller guide assembly on my vert/horiz metal band saw back in '83 or so. Guy used his stk welder rather than his MIG or TIG machines. I had my doubts about this, but it was still holding up fine some 15 years later (I sold the saw to another friend some years earlier w/ him knowing about the repair).

 

Thats a tight crack with no swelling. If you want to use the block use the ceramic block seal you put in the cooling system with water and run till hot and then drain block and radiator and let sit for 24 hrs. I did this on an 84 300 six that had a bigger crack than that and it sealed it up tight for years and never leaked. Upon rebuild 70 thous miles later # 6 cyl also had a 3" crack in the bore that was sealed also.