ALL EXPERTS PLEASE CHECK IN! Sealing a crack in a old repair in-between water jacket& combustion

[mikewest]

So the car is a friends  1910 XXXXXXX with a  Continental motor. The motor had a old repair in the  casting under  the top water jacket  plate into the  cylinder. It was  stitch welded  that was successful ly sealed for many years. Now the  car bubbles  in the radiator and the water turns milky in a hour of running. I would like to bead blast the area clean and put additive in the coolant   in hopes to seal it. Or maybe  add a sealer in the water jacket area??? His thinking is the block sealer will not work because when the car is running its going to push the sealer out .  Two different welders have looked at it and they dont want to touch it. The casting isnt that thick and worry they could make it worse. I used a product IRON TIGHT  years ago. Rebuilding shops use it  when the rebuild motors with wet sleeves and want to be sure  the  sleeves seal well. . PLEASE ADVISE  My friend is 80 and his car is 112!!! 

Edited December 24, 2021 by mikewest (see edit history)

[Bloo]

Despite the claims of half the makers of snake oil down at the auto parts store, I don't believe you can seal combustion with any sort of goo, nor do I believe that if you could, you could do it from the water side. The pressure of combustion is extremely high. The only options I know of are welding/brazing or metal stitching. I gather metal stitching is preferred these days. Your mileage may vary.

[Mike "Hubbie" Stearns]

I wouldn’t weld or braze it. Metal stitching is the only way on old cast iron. Old cast isn’t the same as newer cast. Mike

[DavidMc]

Metal stitching can work well but it needs a minimum thickness for the pins, I used it years ago in a similar location but the internal corrosion of the water jacket had reduced the metal thickness and the stitching failed after a short while.   Welders I spoke to said it could not be welded.  I tried Iron Tight and other witches brews and they were useless in such a location.  I had to find another cylinder block.    Not want you want to hear.

[edinmass]

Don’t attempt to use a sealer. It won’t work and will only plug the radiator. At your friends age, I recommend you run water with cutting oil in it and leave it alone if possible. Cutting oil will not foam, and not cause rust issues if some gets in the cylinder....probably unlikely. Obviously don’t let it freeze. A repair like you are talking about could take a year or more to resolve. Let him enjoy his car........the cutting oil trick should hold it till it’s someone else’s problem. 

[JV Puleo]

Mike..Since it's a Continental engine I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to find a jug from a different car. I'm guessing that even though Continental made it it was special to that car so that wouldn't work but if it has the name dimensions as another car perhaps it could work. A lot of work though and another jug wouldn't be cheap.

[JV Puleo]

Here's another really off-the-wall idea...something I AM NOT recommending but might try in a situation where the jug was otherwise hopeless. It's taken from one of my pre-WWI engineering books. A trick for repairing cracks in cast iron was to make a paste of sal ammoniac and iron filings...in this case I'd leave the filings out since we can presume the crack is very thin. Sal ammoniac, ammonium chloride (NH₄Cl), is highly corrosive. Rust generally occupies about 25 times the space of the material that is oxidized (which is why you can't unscrew a rusted-on nut and why you can scrape a layer of rust off a lathe bed without effecting the surface in any measurable way.) Paint the crack with a sal ammoniac solution (it is soluble in water) and let it rust. One of the Ordnance Department tests for small arms was to douse them with this stuff and leave them out on the roof of the Springfield Armory for a week. If they still functioned after that, they had passed the test. IF it sealed the crack, Ed's cutting oil & water may tend to stabilize it.

 

Again, I'm not recommending this unless all other solutions fail.

Edited December 24, 2021 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[hidden_hunter]

Here’s how it would have been repaired “back in the day”