The Deck on my fresh from the shop 454 has small cracks radiating from a few head bolt holes. 1/2" long maybe. Of course the machinist said it should be ok and wanted paid. I was moving so I needed to get the car mobile.

How bad is this?

Originally posted by Scott_68_SS:
The Deck on my fresh from the shop 454 has small cracks radiating from a few head bolt holes. 1/2" long maybe. Of course the machinist said it should be ok and wanted paid. I was moving so I needed to get the car mobile.

How bad is this? Depends on where are they "radiating" to?? Cracks in cast iron if not stopped tend to keep going.

Depending on location, could be a water leaker. Remember most of the head bolts go into the water jacket and should be well sealed.

MoMoney MoMoney MoMoney

Guess I'll have to pull the heads. It's been a while, but none of the cracks were obviously pointed in a bad direction as I recall. The shop said to make sure and use sealant on those bolts.

Is this fixable? Or should I find another block?

BB talk/help can only go so far... however a decent picture of the damage here would help :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Scott_68_SS:
MoMoney MoMoney MoMoney

Guess I'll have to pull the heads. It's been a while, but none of the cracks were obviously pointed in a bad direction as I recall. The shop said to make sure and use sealant on those bolts.

Is this fixable? Or should I find another block? Scott,
I don't understand the shop telling you to use "sealant in those holes"??
You need to seal all stock chevy head bolt holes.
If the heads torqued ok & you are not having issues run it until you do.
In the mean time I would suggest keeping an eye out for a block ;)
They are always more expensive if you wait until you need one :D
They are probably fixable but no one can tell you without seeing them & if it is "a few" then there is a good chance someone overtorqued the thing at some time or it has gotten very hot been detonated (were the main caps loose?) etc.
There is usually a reason when you find a bunch of cracks & none of them bode well for a long term block.

I've had the engine setting for 10 years in my garage. It originally had an oiling problem caused by a loose pickup. The caps weren't loose though. But it had 11.9-1 with a 288@.015 solid. I was asked by the comp tech guy if I could even hear it ping. My guess is over torque. It's been apart a few times too.

Would it even be worth welding up 3-4 small cracks and getting it decked?
It's .060 over and has been lined honed. One head hole has been inserted.

I'm leaning towards a 276/284F10 and run it till it breaks. I can get another block, but I was saving it for a 4blt conversion and forged rotating assembly. And maybe a turbo.

Scott, Welding a cast iron block is really not an option.

Do you remember how much deck height you had? I'm no pro like Mike, but seems you'd need to lop a good .010-.015 off to clean it up, maybe .020". I mean if the slugs were down .005, you dont have much to deck. Again, start block shopping.

There are better ways to stop/seal a crack in a cast iron block than welding. You can do home brew deal like the following, but there are special fasteners as part of a system that lets you drill it out and replace it with interlocking fasteners that are than ground off flush. If careful, I'm sure for a low performance application, you may be able to just finish it flat with existing deck using hand tools. The system I used before to fix a 3 " crack had special guides that positioned the hole and these special fasteners just right.

It's called "Lock-n-Stitch" & works excellent.
If you want info go here.
Lock&Stitch (http://locknstitch.com/)

You will be amazed at the amount of info on this site

They also have an excellent training program that is worth the money if you want to learn to do it right. ;)

Thanks Mike. That's it for sure. :D Very nice easy to use product... and it actually worked perfect usind tools!!! Saved a very rare block for a friend. graemlins/thumbsup.gif

FWIW, they use lock and stitch on gigantic inline mulitiple cylinder diesel engines, like the kind at your municipal power plant that come on in an emergency when the power is knocked out!! RR engines are kinda smaller versions of these big motors!!!

Seems these big suckers just naturally break the mains and other parts of the blocks just running b/c they vibrate so much as well as put out so much power that they succome(Sp?) to the running load over time and it works great!!

My at the time b-i-l told me that's how the City power plant he worked at fixed theirs several times..

pdq67