since i am on a budget now.... JB weld is my friend!
 

well after the first overhaul failed and i was forced to pull it out and troubleshoot the failure...

i found that i overlooked some electrolysis, it ate away at the front rotor housing water jacket, the water pump housing was also pitted all to hell, i was able to find a replacement for the water pump housing. the iron housings i ordered from a seller on the forums was damaged in shipping so i added some JB weld to the chip at the coolant jacket....

well i have seen it do some pretty miraculous things so i am going to risk it all an go for it. this project taken 8 months to complete i am fed up with the problems so i am not going to waste more time and money so i am going with the $6 fix!

i am shooting for 300 RWHP with this engine, which will be an even tougher task for this gamble.

wish me luck, i will post some pics of my repairs a little later.

LOL!!! I used JB Weld on my air pump bracket (cracked completely through) and its holding up just fine. That stuff is like, religion, or something. ALL HAIL JB WELD :bowdown: :bowdown: JB Weld :bowdown: :bowdown:

Sure will be a pain in the ass when the JB weld cracks.

thats what i was thinking, itll be like a big chunk of carbon, but jbweld

JBweld is like duck tape if you cant duck it fuck it :)

lol well we will see, and how long it lasts... it isn't anywhere inside the engine or near moving parts, it is just in the water jackets where the coolant will keep it cool.

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the holes in the rotor housing were minimal but since it is the hottest part i wrapped a decent amount around the whole exhaust port so it won't be able to work itself loose.

the iron housing, the chip is only about 6mm long. the seal would probably have stayed in on it's own(the break was rather jagged and not below the seal surface) but i would rather not leave it as it was.

one or the other will probably fail in time, just how long is the question.

i realize i must look like an idiot for even admitting to doing this with my engine, but hey, when you got nothing to lose you sure can push your engine to it's limits without worry because you expect it to fail. if it doesn't and you exceed your expectations then you should be grateful. :)

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it should be in and running tomorrow evening, i have to fix a customer's car before i finish this project. i will let you all know if/how it holds up. :)

coolant leaking into rear housing now, the electrolysis was in the front rotor housing. though i checked for leaks at both rotor housings.... i was sure i found the problem, this is becoming too aggravating.

Sounds like you have a cracked housing. You just installed the front housing in the rear. So the problem moved.

the housings never changed position, i checked for cracks and even sealed the side of the housings and filled them with water and checked them for leaks. this problem is eluding me and irritating to say the least.


it is drawing coolant in during the intake cycle because the coolant is spraying out the combustion chamber when i have the leading plug removed, the cooling system is also being pressurized, it has classic symptoms of a blown compression o-ring but i lapped the housings and checked the clearances, i couldn't fit my smallest feeler guage between the rotor housing and the iron housings. i guess i will pull it back out and start over.

i would scrap the project aside from the fact that i have at the very least $1k in parts invested in the engine alone and about a full days work porting and cleaning the housings not to mention the time i have spent measuring the tolerances and clearancing everything. i put brand new mazda side seals and springs in, brand new Atkins solid corner seals, new Atkins apex seals and all new factory gaskets and seals, and i just installed a new clutch set as well.

That sucks man, hope you fix it.


Gil

People usually just build up thin walls, not broken ones. Should report back to this thread every 5k miles or so; I'm curious how long that will last.

read further down, i'm sure it isn't the my repairs that are causing this on going issue though.. i have had the engine out 2 times, this will be the third. unless anyone has any ideas of something to check or have had similar problems?

here is your update....


the boost is creeping to 6PSI now after the port mods and the JB weld rebuild has close to 300 miles on it and got it's first oil change today, though i had to add in some thicker oil because i think the front cover o-ring is bypassing but i plan on omitting the gasket and updating the fitment on that soon and likely install a high pressure oil pump because this one is pushing 160k miles on it...

it did have a couple instances of getting warm but i believe that is/was a thermostat problem so i am going to replace it soon as well.

i did rev it kind of high on a few occasions accidentally(7500+ RPMs) but nothing of note happened afterwards and it drove fine still. the 3800 RPM hesitation is more pronounced now though, when i first got the car i don't remember feeling it at all but i only drove the car 60 or so miles..

the car pulls harder than ever and seems to be doing just fine and more mods are in the works soon, starting with my SAFC2 and looking to get a full 3" turboback system. ;)

oh, and the last and final problem was electrolysis at the rear rotor housing leading plug, it was shooting right on the tip of the spark plug... nothing a little more JB weld couldn't fix.

scary huh?! :D

Yeah, gonna need an update on this one :)

James

the JB weld on the rotor housings actually seemed to hold up well, the iron didn't last long but i'm sure you all knew that... =P


it lasted 4k miles before it failed. got what i needed out of it and pulled and tore down the engine, replaced the bad iron with one of my spare good ones and retroffited some n/a rotor housings to work in turbo applications. the car, i would estimate is putting out ~230-240RWHP at 10psi and i will be adding a T04B hybrid and microtech standalone in a few weeks.


long story short, don't try to short cut and listen to your elders.... :)

all in all, it was a good learning experience for me and i don't listen to what the old crotchety guy down the street who used to rebuild 10 and 12a's and owns his own shop sais anymore. :p: i should have went with my gut and found some good parts in the first place.

you only can learn from mistakes though, i feel 100% comfortable rebuilding my own and other people's engines now after my own trial and errors.

i've rebuilt one other forum members engine since and i'm working on another members T2 right now and i'll be doing a few mods to it to free up things a bit.

i've learned a lifetime's worth in these past 5 months about what works, what doesn't and what works well in these engines.

Uh, be prepared for another rebuild.
Stuff like this isn't supposed to hold.
It's not the bond of the JB Weld to the steel that's the problem.
It's the difference in expansion and contraction rates that will cause the JB Weld to fail.


-Ted

I've been fairly impressed with JB weld in many uses from fixing a radiator endcap to plugging an oil leak on a 4,500 HP turbine's engine case that was cracked.

Please say that turbine engine wasn't in a plane

:crackup: ohman that would suck.

terrorist. :rlaugh:

Can you PLEASE tell us what plane this is on so I don't book flights on it?!??!?!

-Ted

I would be curious as to how well the jb weld acts with the coolant cuz i used to have a 98 mustang gt and the plastic intake manifold cracked at the coolant channel and as a temp fix i used jb weld. It worked for a while but the coolant eventually turned it green( the color of the coolant obviously) and then it started seaping through. From what i saw coolant over time chemically broke it down but i know nothing of jb weld. Good luck with it

No, it wasn't on a commercial plane.

Do a search and you'll know what type of aircraft uses two T55-L-12 engines.

The repair was not necessarily "legal" but the crack once it was stop drilled and JB welded lasted until the engine failed from another cause. I had no problem with the repair and flew the aircraft numerous times.

Well, I used JB weld in three spots on my car that is exposed to coolant. I will keep you posted on what happens to it.

I used it to block off the two sensor holes in the WP housing and the coolant outflow in the rear iron on the top by the passenger side.

James

Oh , went Haltech and TB mod.

James

Yours will probably be fine then. In my case it was under some pretty hard stress and the plastic manifold expanded and contracted when it got hot or cold. Also i was trying to get it to bond to plastic which im sure didnt help the situation. I would keep an eye on it though cuz i was baffled when i saw mine go from being a gray color like its supposed to be to being green like the coolant. It also went from being rock hard to where i could put my fingernail into it and dig into it leading me to believe the coolant broke it down but it was probably that along with the other factors that lead up to it. good luck with it :)

That's strange. I repaired a radiator in an old Nissan with JB weld last year and it still is going strong. I didn't use the quick setting JB weld and don't know if that had anything to do with it. I do know that the non-quick setting JB weld is stronger and resists higher temps.

ya know now that you mention it if i recall correctly i think i used the quick setting jb weld. Thats probably where my problem came from. I completely forgot about that!

i feel like someone should flame the OP for all the noobish-ness. then again maybe it was a necessary learning experience.

the engine still survives and is in my car to date with about 75k miles on it @~325whp and has been for some time.

I had to read this about 4 times. And I scrolled back and forth to the name of the guy posting it too. JB weld? Really? Lol.

Ya the same is true for pretty much all glues and tapes. Not that I don't have a roll of duct tape in the back of my car. I've likewise found JB weld doesn't hold. Under the very best circumstances with a well cleaned & rough sanded surface, no heat and a large bonding surface they might last as long as a rubber or plastic piece. Maybe.

well, keep in mind this was before you saw those failures regularly or had discussions about the topic.

these failures are much more common now on the engines approaching 25 years in age and a chunk of additional years of neglect. even back then turbo parts weren't falling out of trees hence the n/a housing swap which also wasn't common at the time and treading new-ish territory. S4 turbo housings were commonly tore up even back then versus the n/a housings which were usually in decent shape still, most hanging around 100k miles on them.

looking back, the iron probably wasn't damaged in shipping either.. i was probably duped out of my money on a known junk iron and the bits tossed in the box with the iron to make it look like a shipping issue. i've since repaired irons with different methods, methods that actually work.

housings can also be repaired by drilling and tig welding but at the time it was easier to just toss them. i still to this day use both junk rotor housings as engine painting fixtures(from the engine in the original pic). one wound up pissing coolant through the spark plug hole, the other through the exhaust port, it was ugly(also strange that the original engine in the car ran ok for 2 weeks before stranding me at a convenience store with 2 coolant flooded chambers without a hint of burning coolant before that instance).

Ya live and learn. I thought JB weld was amazing the first time I used it for some things. Then came the fails. It's still nice for temporary or low stress applications. The duct tape of adhesives.

Hi guys how about this one,my drag car is semi-peripheral ported and guess what its all done with slow setting jb weld.Thats right no tubes or inserts ,just filled that part of the housings with jb weld after grinding grooves so it would bond well and machined in the new oval ports 25mm high and 30mm wide. I dont want to be pre-mature and say it works great but i have ran the motor very hot ,no coolant just water but have not raced it or pushed any boost through it yet.I did strip the motor down over a low oil pressure problem and the jb weld was still perfect.I will be getting the car dynoed in the new year and hoping to push 20psi of boost through it,so watch this space and see what happens.
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM IRELAND.
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