Re: The third circle of hell, or should I say "liner"

["Dave Swingle" <swingle@xxxx>]

Good question. A couple of big points - the gaskets at the bottom of 
the cylinders are not **just** gaskets. They are also precision 
spacers, and there are (or were) multiple sizes (thicknesses) of them 
available. The reason that they are not supposed to be separated and 
re-used is similar to the copper-washer one-use theory, but with some 
dimensional importance thrown in too. 

The engine-building instructions call for you to assemble the liners 
with new gaskets, measure the protrusion of the liners out of the 
block at the top with a dial indicator, and then replace the gaskets 
with ones of appropriate thickness such that all the cylinders 
protrude the same so that the sealing pressures are all the same. The 
gasket differences are specified in thousandths. I also understand 
that the gaskets are getting somewhat hard to come by, at least via 
the Chrysler/Volvo channels, but you probably should check with the 
DMC places. 

If you ignore all this and slap it back together anyway, you might 
get lucky and have it all work, or you might end up with a leak i.e. 
coolant in the oil at some future time. How lucky do you feel? 

Dave Swingle


--- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Travis Goodwin <tgoodwin@xxxx> wrote:
> That's right. Two of my piston liners moved.
> 
> Everyone is saying how awful and terrible it is and that my life 
will never
> be the same, but for the life of me I can't figure out how so.
> 
> The Volvo manual states and I quote:
> 
> "Caution! Make sure the cylinder heads do not separate from the 
seals at the
> lower seat. If this happens, coolant can flow into the crankcase
> necessitating a complete engine tear-down and cleaning."
> 
> When you remove the head, under normal circumstances there would be 
coolant
> in the block, which could run into the crank case if they moved. In 
my case,
> the block is bone dry, so there was nothing to fall in. I suppose 
it's a
> possibility that coolant could leak beneath it when the head is on, 
but it
> seems very remote. The amount of pressure that will be placed on 
them from
> the top that should be more than enough to seal them back.
> 
> And the seals are attached to the bottom of the liner and cannot 
move or
> shift, so there's no off-kilter seals to worry about.
> 
> Let's say for arguments sake that I have to strip it down, take out 
the
> pistons and check the liners. Well, you have the same problem as 
before. YOU
> MOVED THE LINERS... and this time you took them all the way out. 
Who's to
> say when you put them back you got them down correctly?
> 
> See my point, or am I blowing smoke?