[SEL] Fairbanks Morse ZD Head Repair Information Needed

[cgandree at mchsi.com]

Hi Francis,
Had the same type of problem with my Little Jumbo 1 3/4hp.  Was the first day 
of three day show and removed the head to find that a good sized chunk of 
casting on the inside of the piston wall fell out.  I cleaned the are very 
well carb cleaner and dried.  Then mixed up a batch of JB Weld smoothing it 
out so I would not have to sand to surface match too much and let her sit over 
night.  Saturday morning I did sand it some more for  appearance and 
reassembled the head and started the engine.  She ran with no problems of 
water seeping.
Now 20 yrs later it still runs all day at shows.
give it try.
Curt Andree


> Hi List,
> When I told you that the Fairbanks Morse ZD was running, I didn't  tell you 
> that it was running without water in the hopper.  After  filling the hopper 
> with water, I noticed that  I was getting bubbles  when cranking the engine.  
> This told me that a leak existed between the  combustion chamber and the water 
> jacket.  Since this was the same  engine on which I had to change out the head 
> gasket because of blown  section, I thought that another gasket had failed.  
> After removing the  head, I noticed that it had  some surface damage around the 
> water  ports.  I replaced the head with another one that I had refurbished and 
> a  new head gasket.  Engine now starts with the crank and no visible leaks or 
>  bubbles are present.
> After glass beading the removed head, I started to  JB Weld the deteriorated 
> surface areas when I noticed a small hole (1/32" x  3/16") in the combustion 
> chamber going into the water jacket.  My question  is what procedure should I 
> use to repair this head?  The  area around hole is very thin (about 1/32").  I 
> thought that I could  possibly drill and tap this area for a pipe plug.  I 
> disregarded this fix  as there is insufficient material in the head for threads.  
> Another  possible fix is to weld it but, this area is thin.  Perhaps, it 
> could be  brazed by starting to fill the hole from the outside working towards 
> to 
> the  center.  I don't think that JB Weld can be used in the combustion  area 
> because of the temperature.
> Has anyone faced this type of problem?  If so, how did you  attack the 
> problem? 
>  
>  
> Francis  Maciel
> Santa Maria, CA
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