Reply To: 50 Cent Hone Job

[Don]

Jeff, watched your youtube video…Were both cyliinders rusted? Or, perhaps was it just the cylinder with the slight crack in the liner? There is a possibility that the little crack was allowing water inside which caused the seizure from sitting…Maybe, maybe not….
In any event, Bobw’s advice is best, buying one of the inexpensive flex/ball hones from “brush research manufacturing” is the best bet here. These hones are inexpensive and come is many sizes to fit your cylinder properly….This ball type hone will do a nice job reaching all the cylinder imperfections while not removing a lot of material, it will do a great job of taking any rough edges off the cylinder ports as well….Needless to say, using this style hone will do nothing to help cylinders that are out of round or oversize. But, in your case, you are not building a show piece, you just want to make it run again spending as little as possible.
That being said, that crack in the cylinder is a tough call indeed. It is kind of hard to see on your video, how deep does it go down the cylinder? Like Frank says, the JB weld isn’t going to be able to seal that up effectively. But, again, the crack was hard to evaluate in your video. That rust on top of your crankshaft may be just above where the upper seal rides, so there is the possibility that it has no effect on the upper seal. The only way of telling is to install the three bearings and locate the crank in the block properly (be sure to get those alignment pins on the crankcase aligned with the holes in the bearings. It is hard to evaluate the rust on that crank/rod journal also. I would get a roll of that fine crocus cloth and clean up the crank journals a bit to evaluate again. How does the rod journal look?
This is a tough call buddy….But, I am thinking that this project is surely not worth much of an investment. I would probably reuse these parts the way they are, unless further inspection finds they are totally unusable. This is just a project in “making this thing run again”, I’m guessing this engine will not be used as a “daily runner”. If you/we determine this thing is “beyond hope”, I would just search for a decent used powerhead….Don