I have a barrel leak from the recess each side of the tappet block, initially I had it re-sleeved thinking it was porous cast Iron, but it made no difference, I have an image showing where the leak is coming from, any thoughts apart from scrap It? ... the image is generic and not my actual barrel, just to show the point where the leak is occurring, I cant visually see a crack even with the barrel removed and cleaned.
I had a customers Enfield 500 (later Indian model) said the head gasket was leaking.
on further examination there was a brown plastic residue which when the engine was warm failed to seal the porosity leak. it didnt show when cold only when warm and the casting expanded. Hitchcocks said it was a regular thing 4 or 5 a week!!
have the barrels been over bored?
is it noticeable when hot, warm or cold?
having worked on impregnation and pressure testing, we didnt have leaks when using pressurised cold water or air and soap but when the compressors were on test they leaked when warm. Aluminium or iron castings.
It leaks when warm, actually puffs like a breather pipe from behind the cam followers, particularly the right hand side, the barrels are standard, I only had them re-sleeved because of this problem, sadly It didn't solve it.
There were reports of A65 barrels cracking.
:) :) :)
Try---When its hot, clean away the oil and rub in fast Araldite It may work.
Alternative---Get someone GOOD to put a layer of cast iron across the whole affected area. Or a layer of brass.
Some where in the depth of my mind---I think that you can get an oil additive (similar to rad weld) that will fill and harden as it reaches atmosphere. Supposedly does not affect the oil flow, but will require an oil change shortly afterward. I have no info on this product. It could well be a "Loctite" derivative.
Mike 8) 8) 8)
Hi,
After spending money on the barrel I would try to locate the leaks using a detector such as:
https://www.gas-uk.co.uk/crack-detection-spray-set.html
If you find them and able to, you will need to stop their progress by drilling small holes either end of the cracks, grind a vee in the cracks then fill with braze. I have done this to a A65 barrel skirt with success.
Best wishes...
i have bought a horrible rusty barrel off ebay, I will clean It up and either rebore or re-sleeve It, problem is I just bought brand new standard pistons, this will end up costing me as much as an SRM barrel at this rate, I cant weld it or drill It due to the location, I do arc welding and braising in my shop here, both would have been ok if I could access the area, I was hoping someone had maybe had the same issue, also because my A65 is a very early 1962 one the barrels are hard to find, I feel I was lucky to find this one.
Hi,
Maybe worth talking to SRM, they might have solved a similar issue in the past and repair at a fraction of the cost of bringing that barrel up to spec.
Best wishes...
they are very expensive!! .. I will post it cleaned up, just for fun, see what I got, thanks for all your responses by the way.
the first picture, doesn't do credit to how bad It is :D
we used to have our own impreg plant at work. since concentrating on aluminium block work now all the old kit has gone.
process would be to clean off the barrel, clean of oil, rust, loose paint etc.
next. goes into the impreg tank. the vacuum induced then sucks the impreg fluid into cracks and porosity holes.
once allotted time is over, comes out and a quick dip in cold water to swill off excess
then into hot water tank to seal and make the impreg fluid set.
nowadays, we sent our leaking castings to Loctite Ltd, in Slough. the cost was around £125.
back to our Enfield head, I had a quote from Loctite for the same cost. rang hitchcocks and a replacement head complete with valve assemblies , ready to fit was around the same price. no need to do the loose guide then..
problem with buying used is it may also have same problem.
regarding your pistons, the new barrels may have to be bored anyway, it may pay to have new sleeves fitted and then you are back to zero and use yours
nice, but a new barrel for an A65 is £800.00. I may well re-sleeve again, I will cost up which is cheaper.
:) :)
I reckon you can get it sleeved from about £110 upward per side. As you already have a set of pistons I suggest the cheapest is to resleeve to fit the pistons. Your pistons will sell on prob at a slight loss. Far less than new pots. Depends where you get it done. Then sell your "bad" pots as in need of repair. I don't need them or I would have purchased in this known condition.
Regards
Mike 8) 8) 8)
the re-sleeve was pretty cheap, but why would you buy cracked Pots? ... I mean they look great, but the crack could be pretty bad judging by the amount of oil that's leaking through the side wall, have you got a way of repairing them?
i think the crack is inside the tappet block somewhere or what i assume is a breather hole in the barrel, second image is not my barrel, just to show the breather hole.
as was posted, if its not the cylinders that are leaking then re sleeving will not help.
my suggestion of impregnation would be the better option. around the £150 inc postage, failing that seek out a decent engineer not a manufacturing company (I suggest a man in a shed job) and get the push rod tube looked at, the shape will be a problem, hence impregnation the better option.
If I found them in my workshop its the option I would take, no garantee . not being funny, but if you got them back and they leaked you could ask them to "double" impregnate, as their work did not work. I used to double impreg quite a lot.
As mentioned originally, Enfield India do it all the time, which is the brown residue I had on a customers bike.
:) :)
AS reading the posts suggests there are several ways to effect a repair. dependant on the cause. I think this way---If it was the last ones on earth, we would find a way around the problem.
Mike 8) 8)
thanks i will contact them, as I said I am that man in a shed, I do oxy acetylene braising and MMA welding in my shop, neither are suitable for this as there's no room to drill the ends of the cracks to prevent them spreading further, the rusty barrel replacement cost £130.00, so maybe I can get them to re sleeve this replacement barrel due to the previous job failing.
although I won't hold my breath as their work is not at fault here, the crack is not in relation to the bores themselves.
for clarity on this, originally I had the bores re-sleeved thinking the leak was caused by a crack in the bore, after the re-sleeve the problem was still there, my concern is the crack continuing because there is no room to drill each side of a crack in the area of the leak, so I have bought a second set of barrels which are in a sorry stat but are standard bore, the plan as of now since some useful posts here, is to contact the people who re sleeved the last barrel and have them either rebore or re sleeve them, depending on costs, the reason I am debating this is a rebore would not weaken the barrel, as barrels bolted via a skirt rather than studded straight through barrel and head are inherently weaker, so that's sort of where I am on this at the moment, I would rather not buy more pistons, but If I have to I suppose I will, I would have been happier if the engine center had checked for cracks before carrying out the work as I did report to them exactly what was happening, I shall have a word with them.
thank you all for being so helpful.
here's the lovely and 100% original 1962 A65 just for fun :D