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cracked block ?

306 Views 8 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  josh89z
anybody heard of a cracked block on a 3.1 ? cz yesterday me and my friend were sitting down and decided the only thing i would not fix in my car is a cracked block... did this ever happen in a 3.1 ? ? ?
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I'm sure it has happened, but the 3.1L block is cast iron and it is really strong. I havn't head of the block cracking unless a rod was thrown, or there were some major over heating problems.

Brad
Or a wrong coolant/water mix and that could crack the block also. I'm sure a 3.1 has been cracked somewhere for all of these reason, but a thrown rod will not normally cause a crack in the block, most of the time it will cause a hole. Cause for a rod to let go, it must be under extreme over-revving or a seizing rod bearing, and as you can see for an overrevving engine not much will stop it from turning at that speed. But if an idling engine to get a seized bearing it will most likely just stall or suddenly stop. But if it is running a little faster, it will probably break and put it through the block. But in different cases will different engines let go.

But to tell this from experience, I've seen engines with holes in the block the size of a golf ball and still run for 10-15 20 minutes, but once they are stopped forget about restarting them! It will never happen!
so i'm guessing that means that its not likley to crack anytime soon (200km on mine)

thanx guys. . .
yup..... happened to my wife's 1988 2.8litre back in 1994 with only 32k miles...

it was leaking coolant all of a sudden, i took it to the shop and he said its probably the head gasket. when he pulled the heads, he saw it was not the gasket but the block instead.
When I went from Conneticut down to Georgia, I had all my class mates have me do a tune up and a check off all their cars before we all started the trip down here to Georgia, and I had a guy with a mercury cougar and a 3.8 V6 in it. I check3ed his collant while it was running cause he was complaining about a loss of water. He had bubbles coming into the resevoir while running and they increased as engine speed increased, so I warned him his head gasket was probably going, right or not? and this was a week before we left. He didn't head my warning and on the way down his water pump went and his thermostat fried. I spent friday from 1200-saturday 0600 finsihing all repairs on the damn thing and running everywhere to get parts and while evryone else went a head. Then It was doing the water bubble thing worse and I told him if it runs out of water this time do not drive it because when this happened he'd run till it got really hot then he would stop cool it down a little then run it again. He made it down to tennesse to see his and his head went and ed becasue he wasn't putting water into it and didn't pay attention the to light which I found later he had pulled the bulb.
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n0b0dy said:
so i'm guessing that means that its not likley to crack anytime soon (200km on mine)

thanx guys. . .
Engine blocks don't crack because of wear and tear, cracked blocks are usually cause by freezing of the water inside and the expansion of it, therefore cracking the block.
When I got my car i had a warped head and cracked block, dunno how but i had it...
i had a cracked block on my 2.8 it was the #3(i think) middle cylinder on the firewall. i knew my head gasket was going and kept filling it with water for like 2days and then i went to do the head gasket and seen the ugly bastard. now i have the 3.1
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