Can you "salt" an engine case? Like the old time gold miner?

[matthew henricks]

My one hour old 40HP engine is toast. Thick sludge with aggregate in it after 1 hour. I am to blame i a sure but I need to know why.

Does this make sense?

Used 40HP case with known oil sump water pitting but still in OK shape.
I soda blasted it to get the crap out.
I pulled all galley plugs and cleaned everything after blasting
Every part was new or rebuilt and all parts individually cleaned.

My theory is this.
- When i soda basted the case my blaster was contaminated with other media
- I basically salted the walls (embedded) of the case with crap.
- The cleaning did not get this embedded crap out.

30 min engine break went fine. Changed oil after at it was good.

- I happened to flood the engine with 1 gal of gas after that (Bummer)
- Did not discover it till a week later AND after i tried to start the engine. (Double Bummer)


Could heat and gas in the case release crap from the engine case to destroy the engine in one hour? Because that is what happened.

If that does make sense will the case continue to release crap or ???


crap from 4 finger swipes of sludge after filtering (inch scale shown for comparison)

Close up of the same thing

Engine sludge and some of the pitting

Typical bearing after an hour.

_________________
1964 Original Owner build Thread. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=702135&highlight=

Ambulance Fan's. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=627707&highlight=

Parts i am looking for:
64 bug nice used front/rear Black LHD floor mat.

[txoval]

So it ran for an hour with that much gas in the oil?

Or did you notice the gas, drain it, more oil and then run?

If it ran with that much gas in the oil it was screwed anyway

[esde]

What was your cleaning regiment after soda blasting the case?
Did you run rifle brushes through every bore?
That certainly didn't look metallic, had the engine sat outside before you got to rebuild it?
I'll say, the easiest explanation is that you missed a pocket of sludge when you cleaned it. There are a lot of hidden pockets in there, I know as I did the exact same thing once and wiped all the bearings out.
I assume the engine was not running a full flow oil filter, but this is a good argument for one.
You didn't by chance run a used oil cooler did you?
_________________
modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[matthew henricks]

[matthew henricks]

[sled]

thats just straight up dirt and gravel, that sadly, was still in the case somewhere.

clean clean clean, and then when you think its clean, clean it three more times. as mentioned, run brushes through every single oil passage. compressed air.

*edit you posted a reply stating you did all this
_________________
drive your split.

[mark tucker]

many sludges need help ,soap&h2o dont work on them so wekk not even with presure wshing. break clean works good, but neds to be done a good few times as well as compressed aie in every hole, this encludes the cam tower holes and all agllys, Ive seen many cases that didnt get the small pully end olug pulled and it's all funked up there. also, pickup tube's can be issues, replace them with every rebuild.

[SGKent]

proper machine shop jet wash with caustic soda and hot water. then a pressure washer jet in all the passages until clean. The only time a case would be beaded with walnut shells would be to re plate it. The crap will come out of it but again it takes about 20 - 30 minutes in a machine shop professional jet parts washer, a good stream of a high pressure washer in all the passages, AND lots of high pressure compressed air. A long copper wand to run air down to the ends of the passages helps too. You'll feel the stuff coming out of the passages and screw holes until you get all of it.
_________________
“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[matthew henricks]

Thank you again. Guess clean was not clean enough. Guess i will have to find a proper hot wash locally. (Orange County, CA)
_________________
1964 Original Owner build Thread. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=702135&highlight=

Ambulance Fan's. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=627707&highlight=

Parts i am looking for:
64 bug nice used front/rear Black LHD floor mat.

[Onceler]

What bearing was making the knock and what does it look like?
_________________
1972 Karmann Ghia

[matthew henricks]

[esde]

[modok]

While the gravel is alarming, you haven't found the cause of any knock.

Maybe the bearings were the wrong size or something.
Check the lifter bores?

[matthew henricks]

[modok]

If .751 fits more than .250 into the lifter bore I'd call it bad.
That's about ..005 or .006 clearance

Just a guess. I remember several other bead blasted engine cases where the lifters and the bored just ate each other.

[Onceler]

Got pictures of cam and lifters?
_________________
1972 Karmann Ghia

[nsracing]

That is exactly why I am not a fan of blasting any case. A Hot-Jetwash is best to clean cases. There is just too many nooks and crannies in the case to put all them debris -

Heads and pistons you can blast all you want and sheetmetals.

Goodness -

[SGKent]

those rods don't look anywhere near the quality I would trust in mine.
_________________
“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[FarmerBill]

[Zundfolge1432]

Didn’t see this mentioned but did how did you clean the oil cooler ? It’s quite common for people to reuse old oil coolers. Most just run the parts washer nozzle into one side and run it till it flows clean, SOP I’ve done it myself many times and it usually works. However the two dominant air cooled engine manufacturers Continental and Lycoming never reuse oil coolers having found that it’s impossible to clean an oil cooler 100%. Looking at your situation there was residual blasting material combined with whatever funk was trapped deep inside oil galleries. I’ve seen this scenario before. I saw one man build an engine 3 times because he had to bead blast the case every time. 4th time was a charm when he skipped the blast.

The larger takeaway here is shitcan that oil cooler, don’t even attempt to reuse. You’d be surprised how that blasting media works it’s way into everything, even the pleats of the pushrod tubes and the pushrods and rocker arms. It’s nearly impossible to get it all out.