Cylinder liners

Has anyone had any experience of having a cylinder relined? Is the cost prohibitive? How much are we talking? I have a 6 HP Fairbanks Morse Z type which has a scored cylinder (At some time the gudgeon pin has come lose) and it has poor compression. It still runs but there is a fair bit of blow past. Are there any other ways to remedy this or is it just something to live with. The engine is purely for show and will not be used to drive anything.

Thanks

Phil Carter

Reply to
Philip Carter
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Phil.. I also have a Fairbanks with the same problem, at some time i want to have the engine re-lined, the gudgeon pin had come loose and then at some stage someone had welded it back in!!! so you can imagine the damage, We havent had a quote yet but i should imagine that you talking any where from 200 - 500 quid. I sure someone out there could give a better idea at the cost, good luck.

Regards bob

Reply to
Bob

Instead of the high cost of fitting a new liner, would it not be worth trying JB weld first. Alot of our friends over the water seem to find it ok for this use, in fact I was reading the other day about the same repair, to the same engine, because of the same fault. The guy stated it had withstood the test over many years. Worth a thought.

Reply to
martin hirst

I've heard tales of people using solder to repair scored cylinders on stationary engines, i'm not sure how well it works??. That reminds me I must pull the piston out of my 6HP fairbanks and check the gudgeon pin is secure it sounds like an all to common problem.

Regards, Gary M

Reply to
gary millward

My father was a dab hand at soldering cylinder bores. The last one he did, in a Chev pickup, did more than 120,000 miles without failure that we knew of. The secret lay in cleanliness and using a copper sulphate solution to treat the area to be tinned. It was a skill acquired during the Depression where the reboring of cylinders due to wandering gudgeon pins was a luxury not afforded by many motorists. My father used to reminisce about valve grinds costing 15 shillings and Lord help the mechanic who a removed a cylinder head and damaged the head gasket beyond further use, they cost 5 shillings in those days! At the time he worked at a main Chev dealership which, contrary to today, didn't tend to gouge the customers. Flatrate manuals were the order of the day and the company prided itself on being always able to undercut the flatrate manual for customers. Goodwill actually stood for something.

Tom

Reply to
Tom

Liner it as a last resort - it is bound to cost a fortune. Overboring it & fitting an oversize piston is fine for smaller engines, but as the bore increases in size, so the options lessen & having a new piston cast becomes more likely.

Alternative "treatments" to the bore are certainly interesting possibilities & to these I'd add hot metal spraying & honing to fit - but again likely to be expensive.

Cheapest & least invasive first for my money ;o))

Reply to
Kim Siddorn

Find a liner first that will fit the existing bore after opening up and then can be reduced to suit the original piston.

Having go that far it shouldn't be more than £50-£75 to get it bored out and the liner pressed in and opened up. If you can sort out that bit first, most engine reborers are happier to have a go at the job.

I have used Bedford liners before to bring back a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost engine back to standard bores with great success.

What is the bore size and length (not the stroke, the whole bore length) ?

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

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Reply to
Peter A Forbes

I would not recommend JB weld for the scores, I tried this on my fairbanks and it lasted about two shows then came out, If phils scores are like mine they arched and do not give a good surface to grip on, The soldering method sounds interesting though ...

Regards bob

Reply to
Bob

I'm another who must go have a look at his FM6 bore, JIC .....

Just getting the dimensions will be potentially helpful for several on this list. Beg or borrow a Hepolite liner catalogue & wade through looking for something possibly a fraction smaller that could be an inner liner, or for anything that can be machined to fit.

Very common practice in many parts of the world as everyday motor engineering ... the Cuban, Indians, Thais, Sri Lankans & others can teach us a lot on maximising useful life of engines & components! Even my poor old Inter has a thin sleeve liner, & that was raced for some years .....

One significant problem with stationary engines is that many pre-30 have much longer liners than is common today in motor engine practice, but our experts will be able to point to suitable sources. I've seen two short liners butted & pegged to replace a long liner.

If it's possible to machine Fergie or Renault 16 liners to fit, I've got enough for two for you & two for me....

Colin

Reply to
Colin

Phil... Below is a link to an artical from smokstak , its starts about JBweld on a hopper crack then turns to cylinder repairs, a few guys are swearing by it, looks like the trick is to grind the grooves out and then burn any oil off which might be held in the porous cast iron, I might give it another go and see what happens, certainly cheaper that a re line.

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HTH bob

Reply to
Bob

I have no experience of this sort of repair. My hunch is that if, like a lot of American enthusiasts on SmokStak, you want to run a hit-and-miss governed engine at the lowest possible speed with no load, the JB Weld may survive quite a while.

If you want to use the engine at the speed it was designed for while driving a load, as you might do if you wanted to run a Petter two-stroke cleanly, or to get a paraffin farm-type engine (such as a horizontal Bamford or a Powell, neither of which has a vapouriser) to run well on paraffin, then I can't imagine this repair being satisfactory for very long.

The following is lifted from the JB-Weld website FAQ:

"Q: Will J-B Weld work on an automotive exhaust? A: Because of the extreme temperatures of exhaust systems, we do not recommend J-B Weld for use on exhaust manifolds and catalytic converters. Nor do we recommend the product for repairs within the combustion chamber. "

HTH Regards, Arthur G

Reply to
Arthur Griffin

lot of American enthusiasts on SmokStak, you

with no load, the JB Weld may survive quite a

driving a load, as you might do if you wanted to

(such as a horizontal Bamford or a Powell,

imagine this repair being satisfactory for very

recommend J-B Weld for use on exhaust manifolds and

the combustion chamber. "

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>

Reply to
martin hirst

"martin hirst" wrote

Absolutely, Martin, for a poorly crustacean it's certainly worth having a go, I didn't say it wasn't. It might work for years for all I know.

I was just expressing some doubt as to whether it would be satisfactory. Having often read how many Smokstakers delight in running their H/M engines at very slow speeds, and therefore very cool, I know they won't have tested their JB Weld repairs all that severely.

The other factors I would take into account before deciding which way to go, are how oval the bore is, and how much wear there is on the piston and rings. Finding a friendly engineer with a bore gauge would be a big help. If much of the blowback is due to cylinder ovality, or to worn ring grooves and rings, then the JB will probably not do much.

Based on friends' stories I would guess you're looking at £300 for a relining job of that size.

Regards, Arthur G

Reply to
Arthur Griffin

Just had the old liner on a Lister LD1(3in. bore) bored out and replaced with a new one to fit the existing piston. Total Au$150 Much cheaper than the $300 plus quoted for a new piston The Quote for my Lanz liner (6in. bore and much longer) was a shock at Au$580

Reply to
oldgoat

"Arthur Griffin" wrote (snip)

go, I didn't say it wasn't. It might work for

Don pedant hat, clear throat and announce in silly voice:-

"May I point out just for the record that a squid is in fact a mollusc".

Run for cover and try to think of something enginy to post;-)

Reply to
Nick H

Point taken guys, I don't know much about engines, and know very little about marine wildlife (particularly cephalopods). ;-)

Returning to the topic, has anyone here have had a stationary engine relined? Has anyone used JB, can they comment? I did use JB once to fill small rust pits in the cylinder caused by water in the bore, and the engine ran fine afterwards, though compression took a while to build up.

Regards, Arthur G

Reply to
Arthur Griffin

Yes, lots of multi-cylinder jobs over the years and a couple of smaller ones. Largest were the R-R 40-50hp, smallest was some Onan single-cylinder AJ engines used on the ice-cream vans in the 1960's/70's.

bore, and the engine ran fine afterwards,

I'd not go down that route personally, as I think there would be a temptation to leave it bodged and 'accidentally' forget to tell when it was sold... :-))

"A good job is never too expensive and a cheap job is never cheap enough"

I think that it was Henry Royce that was supposed to have said that, but I have seen it credited to a few others as well.

In amongst the bits we collected this week were some new thin-wall liners, look like they are Petter W1 size....

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

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Reply to
Prepair Ltd

Who led the pedants revolt?

WHICH Tyler ...............

Regards,

Kim Siddorn.

Reply to
Kim Siddorn

Not which! but Wat! :))

Regards, DJC

Reply to
Dave Carter

Has anyone used JB, can they comment? I

bore, and the engine ran fine afterwards,

I've tried messing about with quick fixes in the past, but really the only way to go is to have the cylinder lined., especially if you actually want to work the engine.I've had it done on the Fowler, Lister D gen set, and the Petter-Light engine went in last week. Cost depends on whether you can find an off the shelf liner to fit, or if one has to me machined up. Most of these old cast iron pistons don't seem to wear out of round to any great extent, though ring grooves can be another matter!

Regards

Philip T-E

Reply to
ClaraNET

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