Stitching a crack,opinions please

As I have posted before, I have been looking for a front mount engine for my 2N for a long time. I have not been able to find one close enough to go get. I found a few at distance but shipping is usually more than the engine price. I took a mower to a small engine mech to get running right and mentioned my dilemma. He suggested stitching my cracked block. Said that he has done a number of cracked engines with this method with good results. Anyone done this? Is it cost effective to try? He said it takes awhile but I'm in no hurry. Opinions please.
 
It is an excellent repair. I have done several tractor, truck and auto engines. Cheap,No.Lock-N-Stitch has a great set-up but the tooling is expensive. Most of my repairs are $300.00 and up, which is cheap if you have to remove the engine in a truck,etc. An 8N engine should be easy to come by. Do you have a front mount in it now,or you just wanting to upgrade?
 
A friend of mine who is now a Ford dealer traded one in several years ago that had a crack on the left side that was 2/3 to 3/4 the length of the block. I used the Irontite plugs. Why, (because we also had Lock-N-stitch available) it is less for the tooling. If you can use their #327 pin you can use a 1/8 inch pipe tap to tap the hole. More questions? J.
 
I suggest you just bite the bullet and buy a block.
Here's why: someday you or your heirs will sell that tractor. No matter how nice of a patch job you do on that block it will still be a patched block and no one will trust it. So you will take a significant hit on the price. Far more than any savings you would gain by patching it.
I would get in touch with Jim UT as he often parts out these tractors and if he doesn't have a block now probably will soon enough.
SE AZ is not that far away from Heber City UT area where he lives.
You could make arrangements to have someone coming your way to haul it for some gas money.
It could be easily transported in the trunk of a small Toyota sized car.
 
I have stitched many blocks/housings over the years with just brass screws/bolts. The Lock-a-Stitch works great too. It is faster than using brass screws. It would depend on the length of the crack weather I would go with the cost of the Lock-n-stitch kit.

Blocks and housings repaired with this stitch method are fine to use. If done correctly you can't hardly tell where they are used.

I would NOT WELD a cracked block. Unless you do it right it is just a band aid repair. To do it right you need to preheat the block to almost cherry red to get a good full width/depth weld. After that the block should really be re-machined. For a tractor that is not really rare I would just replace the complete block before I welded it.

Here is a video of the Lock-n-stitch kit being used. You can do the same thing with brass screws. The reason I always used brass is that it expanses faster than steel/cast iron. So the stitched seam has less chance of leaking when hot.
Lock n stitch video
 
Hi Ultradog,

You said, "SE AZ is not that far away from Heber City, UT area where he lives." That depends on what you mean by not far. Heber City to Tucson is a little over 700 miles. It's 835 to Douglas, AZ if you want to get just about the extreme point of SE Arizona. Those roads aren't the fastest in the west, either.

Stan
 
I called a place to get a price and they told me to bring it in so they could look at it and then give a price. Meanwhile I found another block on eBay. I think the repair can be ground down and finished so you could hardly tell it was repaired.
 
Hi Richard,

I was looking on a MapQuest map to see what was 45 miles north of Douglas, and I was surprised to see that the area north and east of Sunizona had a considerable grid of streets and roads. When I drove to Douglas five or six years ago, the areas between towns in that part of the state seemed pretty sparsely populated. Is that area more heavily settled than I was aware of? Or is it just that some places have a good secondary (or smaller) road network?

Stan
 
This is not a new process!!!!

I had an old machinist show me this process 55+
years ago, only he did not use a jig. All drilling was done by eying distance between holes..
 
I have welded blocks using small nickle rod without preheat and had good results. First V the crack. Only lay down about 3/8" long bead then weld is preened with puncture wound punch and hammer. Jump to other end of crack and repeat. Needs to be cool enough to lay your hand on before the process is repeated. I usually end up with pinhole leaks that I loose patience with. I just work JB weld into the weld.
An old welder taught me this but he never had the leaks like I do.
 

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