Bob_T

When my '87 22R motor blew a headgasket at 275,000 miles I wasn't sure if I wanted to put the time and money into it to fix it, but being an idiot...I got to work and tore it apart. There were some suspicious looking stains on the block but after cleaning it I couldn't see any cracks. I knew that aerosol footpowder is good for finding oil leaks on motorcycles so I gave it a try as a crack detector. First I sprayed the sides of the block with WD-40, let it soak a few minutes and wiped it off with a rag, then wiped again with a lacquer thinner soaked rag. After a minute or two I sprayed on the foot powder and sure enough, a crack. Not a big one and I'm not sure what to do about it.



You can see the dark line where the powder shows up the WD40 oozing out of the crack. It wasn't visible before. The bad part is that I already bought a couple hundred dollars worth of parts for this block. I've had good luck brazing cast iron, but haven't tackled brazing an engine block. I know I need to drill small holes at the ends of the crack to keep it from growing as it's gets heated up.

Anyway, I just thought the foot powder crack detection method might be useful. I think it should also work on aluminum but haven't tried it yet.

Bob