I have a D4G with a 3046 long block. Unfortunately I have a cracked cylinder sleeve and am trying to find out if the block can be re-sleaved and rebuilt. In looking at the sleeve (liner) I'm not sure that is possible. Anybody have any experience with this that could offer some advice on this? Thank you in advance
Welcome to the forum. As you said the 3046 has replaceable liners but are you saying the block has a problem too ???
When we pulled the head the sleeve in one of the cylinders has about a 2" crack in it. The crack is in a location where it runs along side a water port. Unfortunately we came to the conclusion that it had to come from freezing.
I'm not personally familiar with this model but are you sure it has liners..? There are none shown in the Parts Manual and in the Specifications for the cylinder block it mentions boring the cylinders oversize if the holes are worn more than a certain amount. The oversize bores are. 100" and. 200" respectively. Are you sure it's not the block itself thats cracked..? If it is then it's probably junk because if the maximum oversize bore is. 200" then there will not be enough meat in the block to bore it and fit a sleeve IMHO.
Depends on if the crack penetrated into the water port you mentioned. Like Nige said a .010" and .020" oversized piston is available, but there is ALSO a sleeve available from CAT that can be installed to restore this block back to a standard bore. I have done this on the 3126 and C7 models, also the 3024, which does have some similarities to your 3046. Let me know how I can help.
I can't say your block is good or bad. I can say its sleeves are available. I have a D4c with a 3046 and am currently having it re-sleeved. The problem my mechanic is now having is the main bearing cap was damaged and is not sold seperatly from the block. If it turns out your block is not usable I would like to buy the main bearing cap. Also if anyone else out there knows where I can find this part please let me know.
Main bearing caps are not sold separately from the cylinder block because the main bearing "tunnel" through all the caps has to be line bored and once this process has taken place each cap has to stay in its location (that's why they are all number-stamped) and has to be installed with the correct orientation. You can't take a bearing cap from one block and fit it to another one, even if you fit it in the same location corresponding to the number on the cap. It will cause a main bearing failure.
I recently had a dry sleeve IH D-407 fixed (which I thought was surely junk iron) which had frozen and pushed through both the dry sleeve and the block bore. It was repaired by overboring, installing a custom fit liner, then cutting it to accept the overhaul kit dry sleeve. Have had no problems with it. Mkw601; as Nige said, the caps are matched to the block. What is wrong with it that it can't be fixed? If it can't, you had better stop the overhaul on that block now. Others on here know way more than I on this subject: the main might could be repaired and the block line bored back to working condition.
True, but if you're lucky you can put a main cap on from another block and then the machine shop will shave the caps and re line bore the block. Not sure on this engine but the bigger CAT motahs they sold over/std, over/under main bearings for overbored blocks and undersize cranks.
Sorry, double post.
No over/under main bearing shells available on these smaller "throwaway" engines unfortunately. Undersize on the crank journal yes, but not the other way.
True, can't just bolt and go but a good machine shop can take a light cut off the cap and then line bore it back to match the others or maybe skim off all the caps and line bore(hone all back to stock. Did this a few times over the years with no problems. And actually one time did pull a cap out of one engine and used it in another without lineboring. Did measure real good and it was within 0.0005 inch of the rest of the bores. Believe we even used the used bearings out of the donor engine. This was on an engine in a machine that was going to be auctioned off, buyer beware is the key word for auction sales. But we did run it around quite a bit with no problems. Sometimes you get lucky! Then there was the first 12V-71 Detroit I ever rebuilt. Noted that the caps were installed with two of the numbers out of order. Before removing them had the boss look at it. His response was if it ran that way for 12,000 or what ever amount of hours why argue with success. So we made a note of it and installed them the same way, out of order! On a somewhat similar vein I'm often surprised how many people selling used motorcycle parts on Ebay will offer crankcases separate from there matting halves and same for overhead cam heads.
Depends on the damage to the existing cap; heat, spun bearing, physical from mechanical contact, etc.. A used replacement that is a close fit can be shifted along its registers to more center it then cut the part line surfaces along with all the caps and align bored then honed. Have used brass and torch welded a badly damaged cap (from a spun bearing) when a replacement was not available. Used to repair blocks main bores with pinned sleeves and replacement caps quite often. If the cap is shrunk so the press is lost with the block register a piece of round stock can be turned to .010" oversize then a flat cut so it'll set on a hydraulic press. The cap heated to red hot, dropped on the round stock and several thousand psi applied until cool. A normal align bore/hone follows. Probably more than you wanted to know....
Battlefield repairs, been there, bought the T-shirt.
A new main bearing cap can be machined from steel billet, and line bored along with the rest of the main bearing bores. That used to be an ordinary and not too expensive upgrade on production-base race car engines (new made billet steel main bearing caps to replace weaker cast iron caps). (the bearing cap is a very basic lump of metal, for a machinist)
It's like the boss when I first started work in the shop would say to you when a question of the possibility of a repair was in question. "What would you do if you were out in the middle of the Sahara Desert and Rommel's army was heading your way?"
Very true, now days with the equipment like the water-jet cutting machines seem it would be easy to knock out a one off cap.
Appreciate all the info and insights guys. The cap was broken and welded back together on a previous rebuild. My machinists says he can build a cap but needs a good core to reference. Since this cap has been welded back together and thus warped all to hell it won't do. If anyone knows where I could possibly get a cap please let me know.
??? Is there some reason I don't see as to why one of the other caps would not be suitable as a pattern??? Seems like he could get close enough by using even the damaged one to make a cap close enough, it is going to need to be bolted on then line bored to the finished size. I'd be more concerned about the the condition of the block if it has had a broken and welded cap installed in the past. Is there something worse going on in this engine that we/you don't know about?
Nothing is wrong with the block. The machinist said he needs another cap. I'm trying to find one. Do you know where I can find a used or new cap?
Ask him why he needs another cap if there is allegedly nothing wrong with the block. If the cap is rooted then I can't understand why the block would not be damaged on the same journal.
Try Boydston Machine in Amarrillo, TX. Wilber or Dan.
True, hard to believe the cap has been broken and welded back together and damaged a second time without damaging the block. At the least I would be looking very close at the main bearing cap bolt holes for cracks. Might try bolting on on of the other caps to this location and torque it down to see if the bolts hold good, check for cracks while it is torqued. Seems like we are not getting the full story on this engine, any good pictures of the damage?
Thanks Scott, they didn't have it but gave me a number to a guy that might.
Im sitting at a machine shop now waiting on them to unload my block the 3046 doesn’t come from factory with sleeves. I ordered a kit with sleeves and tried to get old sleeves out by welding a bead inside the sleeve. Come to find out there is no sleeve there so now I’m getting weld cut out before I can take it to a engine machine shop to get it bored to except the sleeves that came with kit
The block might be ruined from the welding. There is likely hard spots from the welding and it may be possible cracks could form in the heat affect zone (HAZ) of the weld from the different heating and cooling cycles the engine goes through. Hopefully quite a bit has to be removed from the bore and you don't have problems related to the welding.
As well as distortion, hopefully the bearing bores are not out of alignment. I have learned it is best not to hurry things and sit back and think about it for a bit before diving in, and doing something you might regret. As far as heating any of the cast iron parts, just remember many shops use heat now instead of chemicals to strip and de grease the parts, they are using around 700 deg F I think.