Thread: Building A looper Beast

  1. #401
    Team Member R Austin's Avatar
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    I know there is a lot of thought that a rod bolt broke first, however because no metal went thur the engine, I think the failure started with a roller bearing seperater cage. The rod in this series engine the is crank supported and floats on the wrist pin. As the cage breaks down the pieces are trapped with rollers and only fine ground pieces can escape thru the lub slot in the rod cap. As the seperators break and rotate 90 degrees and continue to cascade results in a rod condition like a rod without a cage loaded with missing rollers.
    The rebuild will be with a new set of rods.
    Most importantly, I will not dry start again. With solid butterflys, closedon start the engine still pull air and fuel enough to instantly scream to 5 to 6 thousand RPM. Really unsetteling.

  2. #402
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    I've been using quality Allen bolts instead of those stock Merc bolts on my similar rods.

    How about using SPS or ARP fasteners in that 1/4 inch fine thread size?

    Jeff
    "We live at the bottom of an ocean of air." - General Marvage Slatington

  3. #403
    Team Member smittythewelder's Avatar
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    Maybe cryo-treat the new big-end bearing cages along with the rods, et al . . . ??

  4. #404
    Team Member R Austin's Avatar
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    I revisited the rod parts again and with what I see, think that a rod bolt did start the chain of events. As you can see in the following pictures, the rod bolts left in the threaded portion of the rod are a near equal depths and would confirm that one or both did not vibrate loose and back out. Looking into that portion of the rod you can see that one bolt broke clean in tension. The other was hit by another part at the very tip of the break but you can tell it was more of a pull or necking out that failed it, more of a fatigue break, like maybe the one that failed first. Could make the assumption that they did not break in the same fashion. The shank portion of the rod cap clearly indicates that one bolt came out clean with out disturbing the body while the other shank body blew apart as you expect from a side load trying to break off the bolt.

    What is still amazing is that near all the parts of the rod stayed in the case area. The rod and the two bolt parts are complete with the exception of one piece that would have completed the shank bore of the one that fractured. You can tell by how badly battered these steel parts are the kind of thrashing was going on inside the case. Still there was not a mark put of the face of the top main and only a couple of rub marks, not gouges or scratches on the face of the main body.


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  5. #405
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    Just spit baling here with your dry fire and high RPM would it be possible you cold stuffed that piston which started the whole reaction? With out damage to the piston, cly, ring? Possible I guess?

  6. #406
    Team Member Frank Volker's Avatar
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    Dick, First off, very nice job on a difficult project.

    The most telling photos to me are the ones showing the rod caps and bolts. I ran those in through Photoshop for a better view. I couldn't get the light/focus like I wanted, so all the following could be pure conjecture.

    It appears that there are thread impact marks in the rod cap bolt holes. Also, the threads on the bolts (near the bolt head) appear to have undergone some peening, indicating cap movement. There is also some indication of this on the bolt mounting surface which shows some peening and smoothing of the machine marks. Best of luck to you in Phase II.

    Frank

  7. #407
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    That bolt on the right suffered a fatigue failure--that's where the problem began. (I was a mechanical failure investigator during my engineering career.) Trust me on this: it's an obvious failure. I've seen hundreds of them just like that, with their 'beach lines' and the final fracture sites

    You need to REPLACE every bolt with reliable, American made (not Chinese) high quality bolts and this problem will not reoccur.
    "We live at the bottom of an ocean of air." - General Marvage Slatington

  8. #408
    Team Member R Austin's Avatar
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    Now that we have reached a consensus as to what took place, I will move into the repair phase. Steve, I did not suffer a loss, only a minor set back, but thanks for the thought. Did make me feel bad, but my first thought lets move on and get it fixed.

    Other than the sleeve the most damage happened to the front cover. The rod hit it hard enough that it cracked and separated it around the bolt adjacent to the rod slot and along with a piece of the rod cap that wedged into the reed area and tried the separate the part like a jack. Had the rod been in any other position in the engine, I think it would have been totally destroyed. The distributor ear and the starter ear provided a lot of metal to help absorb the blow.

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    The intermediate case corner mating to the front cover took a hard hit also, however, that case is heavy. Its flanges and its cross section are heavy by design. I knew that this was the weak part of the engine but did not expect it to have to survive this kind of hit. It was hit hard on both sides and was only scared on the internal surface and no displacement of basic metal. I did cross bolt the front end to the block. All bolts along the main are into the block so the intermediate case is held by the flange bolts and the main thru bolts.

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    The black material inside of the engine is the coating that was applied to the piston. That material is sluffed off as the pistons are self fitted during break-in. This is what the block looked like from the case side.

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    I took the front cover and removed a couple of loose pieces in the side of the reed pocket and bolted the cover to a stock block. With a long pipe clamp spanning the length of the block and c-clamps, I was able to bring the casting tightly back together. With a rotary carbide cutter and drill, I removed the metal around the bolt boss and out to the edge of the flange near 50% into the casting. I also removed the crack 90% deep across the reed cavity end. With wire feed I welded that area in and let cool. Once that was done I placed the front cover on the mill and with a 1/2 inch round bottom mill, removed the crack on the mating face. Then when this was welded it allowed the cover to shrink toward the mating flange pulling the ear so I would have metal to machine off the effected area. It pulled that corner about .020. With the re-machining and dressing of that corner completed, I set the case assembly in the line bore lathe and rebored the top main as the pulling of the corner deformed the bore. Once completed, I went back to the mandrels placed on the boring bar and refaced the top end of the assembly.

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    Normally when I remove a sleeve, I bore to within 5 to 10 thou of the sleeve OD and peel out like a piece of paper. On this sleeve I just bored to the extent of the damage and then heated the block and removed the sleeve. With the transfer covers glued into the block I can not port without cutting them out. The JB Weld used to glue in the covers will with stand the 450 degrees required to do sleeve work. Removal allowed me to Make a port map.

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    To make a port map I used a piece of 1/16 styrene and wrapped it around the removed sleeve and secured with tie warps. Using a solider gun with a blade tip, I cut out the ports and a small section of the exhaust to have a edge of port line for sleeve alignment during installation.

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    Transferred the port position onto the sleeve and put the sleeve in the mill on a rotary indexing head and positioned the sleeve and ported in same manner as if it were in the block. The final dressing of the top transfer will be done thru the top of the cylinder after final boring as before.

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  9. #409
    Team Member Gene East's Avatar
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    Rich

    Your "Never give up" attitude should be an inspiration to all of us who have watched this project from the beginning.

  10. #410
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    It can definitely be fixed, but you have to make some rods that are capable of handling the output of this design (stress tested at engine temperature), or find some that are. Those factory Merc components will not handle that kind of power, and it will happen again on another cylinder or cylinders. A lot of folks over-estimate the capability of standard Kiekhaefer components (particularly cranks and rods). I have heard of rods that were bent, and broken cranks in the old two and four cylinder models from just regular stock engines. From what I have read about in the past, Mercury supplied special rods for the Quincy loopers if I'm not mistaken.

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