Snapped cylinder head studs

[milothedog]

The angle grinder was on standby throughout, Ian, just in case I ran out of patience........

I surprised Dave, you of all people with you H+S background. "using a grinder on Non Ferrous metal"

[jagorstag]

Brian the Administrator (brian0443) has come to the rescue and very kindly offered the loan of his version of the head removal tool, so will pick it up soon enough and give it a go. Fingers crossed I'll be able to lift the heads enough with that to just cut the studs, unless of course they just slide off the remaining studs...

Cheers,
Joakim

[milothedog]

Just a thought, never tried it, but can you draw the Pistons out from the bottom with the crank removed if you can, take the camshafts off to close all the valves and maybe with a nicely fashioned piece of soft wood you could move the heads upwards enough to cut the broken studs.

Ian.

Just been looking at the pictures of when I did Deans Crankshaft. It does look like they could possibly be extracted from the bottom of the bore (if you zoom in on the picture) with the crank out of the way? anyone tried or know if there is enough space to get them out

DSCF1092.jpg

Ian.

[richardthestag]

that crank hasnt been hardened

and paint inside the block?!?

could still use rope trick if engine is secured and still has flywheel and starter fitted

I used Paul GS head pusher, dead easy

Getting one seized stud and one broken bolt wasn't so easy

IMAG0572.jpg

[milothedog]

that crank hasnt been hardened It came from James Paddock and allegedly is? (Nitrided) it did need special thrust washer making up though as the standard sizes available would not bring the end float within tolerance.

and paint inside the block?!? It was all washed down with chemical cleaner, I don't think Dean painted behind of the timing chains although he did the outside of the block.


The same engine came apart again last year to finish the job off (Rebore, Pistons and Rings and the heads reworked) all was still well with the rest of it.

[richardthestag]

I had one of those hardened cranks from RB but is was a long time ago like 20 years, it provided lots of entertainment for me in 2013

IMAG0923.jpg

Best journal was like running your fingernail over the surface of a 45, worst was more like a 78!! All the shells showed very light wear.

That said is was on 10thou main and big end and in theory should have still had enough factory hardening to survive! BL in the 1970s eh

New hardened crank from Faversham is a completely different colour, old block has oil on the inside but you can see what I mean, Just need to run it for another 20 years 30k miles to compare

Old
IMAG0921.jpg

New
IMAG1096.jpg

[milothedog]

Can't argue with what your saying about the colour of it where it's been treated. He had to wait for his while they were having some done and when we told them about the end float issue (IIRC we couldn't get it under about 0.017") they made a set of thrust washers up and posted them FOC. Like I said it still looks OK and Dean does drive the car hard sometimes and it's got a few thousand miles on it now. Time will tell.

Ian.

[richardthestag]

Drive mine hard quite a lot. mainly exercising the rev range rather than cornering capabilities

Still it did last quite a while but was on its last legs even though the oil pressure was still good, no knocking etc, no idea how much longer before it did but it was futile to reassemble knowing it to be in a poor state.

[RNF]

I can't see how it would be any help if the stud has broken flush with the head as you wouldn't be able to conduct the head down the stud

We trialed one FOC from Snap-On at work about 4 years ago but gave it back to them maybe they are better now ?. There's no substitute for a set of gas bottles IMO but I do appreciate that access to them is not an option to most of us and you would need to be very careful to avoid damaging the head .

I think perseverance and ingenuity such as DJT did is the only way and from what I've seen most end in success. If not a little stressful at the time

Ian.

Ian,
I have not used one...yet, but that is my main question. A buddy of mine has used them often onboard ship and swears by them. Maybe I'll get him to give me a money back guarantee.

[flying farmer]

Just a thought, never tried it, but can you draw the Pistons out from the bottom with the crank removed if you can, take the camshafts off to close all the valves and maybe with a nicely fashioned piece of soft wood you could move the heads upwards enough to cut the broken studs.

Ian.

Unfortunately the main bearings overlap the bores so pulling the pistons out of the bottom is not an option.
Neil

[milothedog]

Unfortunately the main bearings overlap the bores so pulling the pistons out of the bottom is not an option.
Neil

Thanks for clarifying that Neil.

Ian.

[V Mad]

Hi Joakim,

I made a pusher tool as per Dasadrews article, but with the snapped studs I found the bolts tended to bend and slip off the studs. I bought some stud joiners (effectively long nuts) and welded them to the underside of the tool to reduce the free length of pusher bolt to a minimum. It still failed to lift the LH head which had 4 snapped studs. I eventually made some spreaders and pushed the head off. These were made from lengths of scaffold tube, some 1.25" stud bar and nuts, with lengths of angle iron bolted to the heads to push against.

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Wheres a good place to get such large studs or bolts Dave?

[dasadrew]

Wheres a good place to get such large studs or bolts Dave?

Before or after he retired from working on oil rigs?

[DJT]

Wheres a good place to get such large studs or bolts Dave?

Good question. I bought a length of this bar and two nyloc nuts about 25 years ago from a local engineering firm, now long since closed down. The reason for buying them was to mount a cartwheel on the outside wall (SWMBO's idea ) of the garage of our previous home. They have been lying in the back of a garage drawer for about 20 years. To make the spreaders I cut the bar in half and the nyloc section off the nuts. I'm not sure where I'd go to buy them now. Try ebay?

[DJT]

Before or after he retired from working on oil rigs?

Tut, tut, Drew. Are you implying that oil rigs are a good source of material for home projects?

I wish I could have brought home a fraction of the goodies I've seen thrown in the scrap skips over the years. I'm sure there are no poor scrap merchants in the Abereen area..