"cracked" engine due to pre-installed crappy air-ride!

Discussion in ''Da Nailhead' started by nimrod, Dec 19, 2007.

  1. nimrod

    nimrod Guest

    maybe you can see the attached blurry picture taken today. my engine and transmission lost oil and we found out today that my engine block has cracks and does not fit tightly to the transmission. presumably reason for this was the airride pre-installed by one of the former american owners. either he or the german pre-owner rode too low or sat the whole car too low which caused a distortion which lead to cracks in the lower engine block area. as you can see the lowest section of the engine/transmission has even been wielded. this points to a former damage which had been unprofessionally repaired. in addition there had been huge cut-outs on the front frame, deletion of the front stabilizer and other nasty things. car is "grounded" and restoration stopped until i decide what to do next with this car.
    @TomT: as mentioned in my PM everything is stopped even if i would like to make the roller rockers my X-mas present. thanks for your efforts and contact data nevertheless. shame on me that i discovered the damage only after an engine wash and detailed examination with my restorer.
     

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  2. telriv

    telriv Founders Club Member

    Dirk, that's just the flywheel cover. Is there more damage that can't be seen in the picture???
     
  3. nimrod

    nimrod Guest

    attached are few more pictures ... taken after cleaning and engine still being getting oily from above. cracks (which had been made visible with special detection fluid) are mainly running in the "direction" of the flywheel cover screws and the motor mounts (which were heavily worn as was the transmission mount). is it possible that the flywheel cover wielding has caused a severe temperature distortion? i'll try to capture the cracks tomorrow CET with my camera. my background is having studied at the wuppertal college, having a german engineers diploma and written my diploma in modern environmental engine tech regarding 4-stroke internal combustion engines. for me it looks like there has been an enormous temperature stress which caused the engine block to alter it's molecular structure due to its high nickel percentage. in addition to roughly putting the car often on the ground it may be that the cracks have been caused primarily by too tight screwed together parts. this happened even to 3 experimental aluminum engines during my diploma getting cracked under similar circumstances because we left a highly modified small capacity engine with 1 hybrid turbocharger and 1 supercharger (like VW offers now in their Golf) unshielded from heat. they cracked due to extreme tight screw connections. important to remember: if you "hammer" on cast iron it does not bend but it cracks ... sometimes without warning :-(
     

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    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 19, 2007
  4. Smartin

    Smartin antiqueautomotiveservice.com Staff Member

    If there is oil coming out of your inspection cover, then you possibly have a leak in the rear main seal. Or oil could be dripping from a leaking gasket above. (valve covers, valley cover). Your transmission front seal, and/or pan gasket could be leaking as well.

    You can remove the welded cover and inspect it without losing any fluid. It should not be holding any liquid. All it does, is protect the flywheel and torque convertor on the transmission.
     
  5. nimrod

    nimrod Guest

    thanks for all the hints and your logical comments so far. i will do a detailed report tomorrow after an examination. speaking of the oil leaks (and not the cracks): the flywheel gasket and the oilpan gasket are even squeezed out of the area they should seal - which only happens if the force of the ratchet is much too high. i still wonder how this car has gotten german TV and why my former restoring garage has not seen/corrected any of these faults although they claim to have year-long experience (not only with mopars). i am still confused and restless (as you can see on the timecode of this posting) where these cracks are from. can such a sturdy engine really be under such a stress due to high wielding temperature? or does that lead to another alternative: that this car has had an accident in the past??????:Do No:
     
  6. Smartin

    Smartin antiqueautomotiveservice.com Staff Member

    There shouldn't be a gasket on the flywheel cover. It is bolted into place with no gasket, because there should not be any oil behind it. There is nothing to seal.
     
  7. tlivingd

    tlivingd BIG BLOCK, THE ANTI PRIUS

    I think you have a few bad seals with that engine and trans.. and more than likely the engine and trans mounts rubber have dry rotted with being 30+ years old. your car looks like the bottom of my skylark after driving with no front main seal for 4000 miles and the front seal leaking on the transmission.

    their is no way no how that welding and it's location, on that flexplate cover could have damaged that block or trans. it's a separate piece made of sheet metal. Just unbolt that cover and see for yourself that that's all that is wrong. it's just a simple cover.

    now dropping the airbags with the engine flywheel landing on a speed bump there is a very very, very small chance you cracked the mounts. i think you maybe panicking over nothing though. unless the previous owner seriously over tightened the bolts but i'd assume the bolt would strip before taking out one of the mounting tabs and cracking it. I too have an engineering degree and mine happens to be in mechanical engineering, I used to work at the worlds largest air cooled engine manufactuer and now work at one of the oldest and most specalized indoor crane companies in the world. and have NEVER seen an issue with these mounts unless UPS dropped it out of a truck. the 4 wheeler guys have put similar designs thru a lot more abuse than an airbag system could have done, not to mention the guys who put hydraulic systems in cars to get them to jump off the ground. I also believe that this same bolt pattern is also used in some of the land rover models with the old Buick designed engine.

    added: If i recall correctly there are stretch marks in my flywheel cover from the stamping operation that could possibly hold the penatration dye you used.

    I think the only problems you have is the poorly repaired flywheel cover that you don't even need to run your car (maybe to pass inspection however) and you more than likely have old dryrotted seals in the engine and transmission and a simple resealing job maybe all that is needed to both the engine and transmission. and the squished out gasket could have been a bandage attempt to fix the leak. (the gaskets on these cars do not have spacers to limit tightness)
     
  8. telriv

    telriv Founders Club Member

    What is that rubber hose hanging down??? It could be someones attempt to vent blowby gases from a worn engine under the car. Where does it attach to???
     
  9. nimrod

    nimrod Guest

    @ the living god (dare i speak your name :grin:?): you might be right. after having at least some hours of sleep i really can not think of any logical reason of "surface (?) cracks" going that deep into the engine block that any liquid is spoiled. sometimes i can't keep myself from hitting the "PANIK" button :laugh:.

    @ TomT: i really do not know what the rubber hose is for. i bought the car that way. i am not really sure if i want to know what they did in the past to the car. i even fear opening the block to do the blueprinting ... although the powerplant ran most of the time (suspiciously) extremely smooth.

    unfortunately my garage guy is today on his way to lbeck to buy himself a 5window ford hotrod so i can do a further investigation of "cracks" (possibly only on the "surface") and "rubber hose" only from tomorrow on.
    attached are pictures to show you how much they cutted out of the frame to accommodate the air-ride airbags. underbody has been painted black already. the other 2 are taken on the day when i brought her paderborn to wuppertal. the tiny black "invisible" car behind mine is the opel speedster turbo (same like the lotus elise only with different design and more HP) with which my friend and i had a quick ride to that city of paderborn to buy the rivi.
    BTW: friends of mine working at AUDI engine engineering in ingolstadt mentioned possible vibration as cause and what they really did not wanted to rule out was the car driving/sitting on the ground due to that former air-leaking airride. i have shown them pictures of the extremely worn body -, engine- and transmission mounts.
    if you are still interested i will keep you updated.
     

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  10. doc

    doc Well-Known Member

    Dirk,
    Pard, I am going along with all the other guys. i do not see any thing that is not fixable. it is hard to bust a engine/ transmission that is bolted together. i have seen a lot of engine/ trans that have been in bad accidents that were alright. Like some of the rest, I will tell you that messed up trans pans/oil pans/ bell housing covers are nothing. If the block is cracked it can be repaired, if the trans is cracked it can be welded. i think you have oil leak problems and just have to take a hard look at the situation and figure out how to straighten it out.
    German folks are known for their mechanical enginuity, I find it hard to believe that this car is not fixable.
    No, You are better than that. Like my old friend used to tell me , "If it was easy , kids could do it". Be encouraged, you can fix this situation.
     
  11. nailheadina67

    nailheadina67 Official Nailheader

    It appears to me that it had a leaking rear seal, and some Einstein :Smarty: decided to weld the drip hole closed on the converter cover, which then likely filled up with engine oil and splashed it all over the place.
     
  12. tlivingd

    tlivingd BIG BLOCK, THE ANTI PRIUS

    Joe, i think your right, i thought the slit just past the weld spot was the drain. but it think the opening is closer to the engine. I guess that's one way to keep it from dripping in the used car lot.

    EDIT!wow. that's odd i didn't do the ones above, it's like it was sending it as i was typing. i'm going to leave it so the mods can see what happened and maybe report it to the software devs
     
  13. Smartin

    Smartin antiqueautomotiveservice.com Staff Member

    weird...:laugh:
     
  14. 73 Centurion

    73 Centurion Well-Known Member

    In every airbag installation I've read about like the ones on http://www.webrodder.com/

    they talk about opening the spring pocket to make room for the air bag. They always say it doesn't affect the frames strength.

    I'm not saying they did a wonderful job, it's just that cutting the spring pocket is common.

    John
     
  15. nimrod

    nimrod Guest

    here is the solution to the riddle:
    today we used a rented ultrasonic tool to estimate how deep the cracks are and we found out that they are only 1mm to 0,5mm deep! interestingly the engine is painted blue instead of the standard turquoise buick engine color in the problem areas. our assumption is that there is some kind of thick blue paint on the engine - which cracked because of age - and caused the detection fluid to highlight them.

    so no vibration, no crash, no damage due to past air ride issues or other crazy assumptions from me or my AUDI-friends seem to be true.
    i will now start to strip the engine of all the strange coatings and see what is beneath.

    happy X-mas and happy new year in advance.
     
  16. SpecialWagon65

    SpecialWagon65 Ted Nagel

    Good news! Have a merry Christmas there! Ted Nagel :beers2:
     

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