The Harrison Racing Outboards - Legendary Birmingham Metal Products Alky Outboards

[Mark75H]

1920's ... Schnerle ... gas

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I will sit on sack cloth, dump ashes all over myself, weep, wail and knash my teeth for a whole 24 hours plus the common Hail Marys expected of me too! Pennance enough!

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

When I got the Harrison A block the cast iron liner had been pushed out. The liners they used and installed are typically a dry liner. I suspect it, the cast iron liner was ported before it was pushed into the block that already had the aluminum ports already in it ready for the liner's installation. There is no sign of any cement or sealant being used as part of the liner installation. The aluminum deck the liner fits into has been deburred after the liner was pushed out. (heated or cold removal is unknown)

Now I want to put it, the liner back in. The liner has been crack tested and its okay. The liner has been tested for constant outside diameter and its okay.

Should I be using the method where the oven heated block and frozen liner drop in method with a hydralic press doing the honors without any sealing cement applied either to the block?, to the liner? or to both? and what sealing compound if one is used? Looking for best, safest advice. Anyone with that experience?

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

John:

Someone very knowledgable about PRO engines/resleeving is Don Nichols in Baton Rouge,, La. He has a number of years experience in this type work, including V-6 Merc and OMC engines. Let me know how to contact you personally and I will have him get in touch with you.

That being said I had the occasion to have sleeves replaced several times in both Konig and Yamato engines by Harry ZAK. He always used the hot block and cold sleeve method and used clearances that allowed him to resleeve by hand placement of the sleeve in the block and then let the temperature differental lock the sleeve in place. He did at times use "molycoat" on the OD of the sleeve to build up the diameter for a good fit if the sleeve was what he felt was too loose after everthing had cooled down to normal. I also was aware of him using O ring seals on the bottom of the flange of the sleeve to prevent water leakage around where the exaust port was, as that was a potential source of leakage in some Konig engines. I never knew him to use any type of liquid sealant such as permatex or anything like that. He always got the correct interference fit with the addition of molycoat if needed or in some cases even made new sleeves from scratch by purchasing a blank without ports, but of the right dimensions from LA Sleeve, and then cutting the ports himself. Unfortunately I don't know what clearances he thought were proper. The O ring material he used was "Viton", a high temperature material.

I would think that the precision of the job would also be dependent on whether or not you actually wanted to run the engine again, or just display it. If it was never going to be actually run perhaps that would be the determining factor as to trouble and expense you might want to go to.

Good Luck

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Jack Chance did the same thing Bill Van explained regarding the hot and cold. And like Harry's system, it did not require a press. One thing Bill Van failed to bring up was removal of the old sleeve. Some people pressed them out. Jack took our blocks to his brother-in-law who was an excellent machinist and he made them slim enough to peel out. Seems like he did it lopsided where one side was thinner than the other, and that's where Jack started peeling.

[Tomtall]

I never knew him to use any type of liquid sealant such as permatex or anything like that.

I would think this was never done as it would cause a barrier between the sleeve and block and would effect heat transfer from the sleeve to the block when running. Just a thought.

The following is what Google produced on resleeving process.

http://www.cyclewareables.com/pages/...ve_install.htm

[smittythewelder]

One of Zak's applications for molycoating was certain of the sleeves in early Yamato 4-cylinders. These were 2-part sleeves, with standard iron liners inside a cast aluminum sleeve that formed the floors of the transfer ports, giviing those ports a nice sweepiing curve. From the factory, these 2-part sleeves were bedded-in with what looked like Yamabond non-hardening #4 (which wouldn't seem to be very good for heat-transfer; in fact, I wonder how good that two-part sleeve was for heat transfer. Aluminum is better than iron, but the interface would seem to be problem.).

The trouble with these sleeves is that, with aluminum on aluminum, they tended to gall when pressed out. Zak's answer, when it was time to put the sleeves back in the block, was to clean everything in detail, then spray and bake molycoat on the outside surface of the sleeves, .002-.004" thick. The moly, a dry-lubricant, allowed the sleeves to go in and out without galling, and the thickness of the build-up kept them in place. All of this is from a phone conversation 25 years ago, but I think it's correct.

I wonder how this would have worked on the early Quincy Loopers. Seems to me I heard that holding the non-stepped sleeves in place was a problem for some owners. Maybe a thick build-up of moly would be an answer (if there is indeed a problem).

Yet another fix: Some owners of old Brit-bikes were troubled by porous castings, including crankcases that would seep oil right through the walls (other owners take a perverse pride in such distinctions)! There was/is an outfit in California that would immerse your set of NOS or used, vapor-degreased crankcase halves in a vat of Loctite and draw a vacuum on it, pulling Loctite into the porous metal. More to the point for us, this operation was also performed on cylinder blocks with either pressed or cast-in-place sleeves to fill the voids between liner and block. The idea was that while Loctite might not be the greatest heat transfer medium, it was better than air.

I started getting parts for various projects molycoated from about 1966, by a company that did a lot of this work for Boeing. In the mid-'70s, the heyday of 2-stroke roadracing motorcycles tuned and modified by do-it-yourselfers (wild-eyed port-grinders!), a company called Kal-Gard started offering molycoating supplies, running big ads in Cycle magazine. Piston skirts were the most frequent application, but there are many others. With the sad passing of roadracing 2-strokes and those who loved them, Kal-Gard went back to its core clientelle of gunsmiths and industrial users. The company split up, but if you want to try your hand at molycoating, have Google look up KG Industries and Gear-Kote (formerly also sold as Piston-Kote). Ask for Chris, who will soon run the company, and tell him Smitty sent you.


(possibly the last several posts here might serve a wider group if they were pasted in one of the Tech forums . . . ).

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

That last time I had a liner installed was in a Mercury 40H back in 1969. A big end rod bearing got loose wiping out the liner. The new liner was done by a friend through a friend who did it at some off time at Standard Aero Engines. When I got the block back the liner was in it without the ports cut back in and he wanted all of $80.00 for doing it excluding the 24 of beer we drank in his garage looking at it when I was picking it up. Pritchard Machine re-cut the intake and exhaust ports so nicely you could not tell that Mercury had not done it to begin with. That was another $100.00 bux for the ports and leveling out and knotching the new liner in the crankcase side so that it matched the other 3. The 40H ran flawlessly with the liner replacement from there on. Interesting was that this replacement liner was brighter metal as finished honed than the original liner material.

Concerning the Harrison A, when the liner was pushed out some gauling was present though not severe. I have since run a slow fine grit hone with thin penetrating oil down the aluminum bore hole without any ketching incidents serveral times, each time cleaning the bore hole and inspecting it for smoothness and roundness with a bore gauge. The outside of the liner has been cleaned to a fine finish and checked for flaws. The inside has been lightly honed with no problems found. There were no apparent reasons so far was to why the liner was removed to begin with. I will be picking up the liner from crack testing next week to deal with any flaws the eye can not see.

No kidding here, but I was thinking of heating the block in the oven to 450 degrees, freeze the liner in dry ice and use some liberal coating of mixed up JB Weld on the liner and gently re-install the liner using a small 20 ton press in as big a hurry as possible before the temperatures could equalize or the JB could setup! I really like your sprayed on molycote idea a lot better! I got a couple of cans of molycote spray and I can get a Sony or Sansui record turntable for a couple of bucks from a used store to spin and spray the liner evenly, let it all dry and then do the heat and freeze with that method you have all indicated was a well used method to do the job well.

I would like to see the engine not only together but also being able to run too, on occassion, so its just not some lookeesee sawhorse queen. This re-install with molycote sounds quite doable with an engine becoming again runable. Thank you all very very much!

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

At a recent small 2 stroker (sled) parts sale and swap meet I purchased a NOS, what appears to be near complete 12 volt DC electronic powered up exhaust (twin pipe) water injection (European) kit that uses the pressure pumped pressurized bottle and solinoid regulated method of injecting 2 racing stacks, with every manner of controls, adjustable jetting, plumbing and all. It is highly compact in sizing and looks like it cost a fortune to make with heavy duty quality through out. Does anyone here have some experience to relate how this type of stack water injection system could be adapted to a 2 cylinder loop engine like an Anzani, Harrison, Konig, Yamato etc. similar?

This is unlike any Quincy Loop Flathead water injection setup I have restored. I have no experience on any other water injection system on any other pipes outside of the singe Quincy Flathead type. There is no dating on the kit but it appears to some to come from the 1970s to early 1980s. I am going to take pictures to post and may be trigger some information on this kind of system and its installation?

[Mark75H]

I know PWC's use something like that. Their market may be the source, but I doubt the age is prior to 2000