Wet Cylinder Liners
Wet Cylinder Liners
(OP)
Is there a limit to the number of times you can rebuild an engine if you use wet sleeves? My understanding is that wet sleeves act as the actual cylinder and are held into the block with an o-ring. If you can simply remove the sleeves and overhaul the engine, does this mean an classic engine block could be maintained in running order indefinitely?





RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
----------------------------------------
The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
What is the lifespan of a cast iron block anyway? Many early engines are around, even Model T's. Heck, even firearms last centuries.
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
Low and medium speed engines have longer service lives, smaller lighter high speed engines have lower service lives. Different types of engines are built and rated for long time use, others are built to provide maximum horsepower in as small a footprint as possible.
So really the best answer to your question is, it depends. What kind of engine are you talking about? How is it rated? What kind of service is it in? How many hours a year does it run?
Hope that helps, MikeL
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
Irv Godron kept his engine running 3 million miles with 2 rebuilds. I intend to daily drive this vehicle for as long as possible. I'm here to set a record.
Engine is wet lined, so, if it needs an overhaul, I would simply replace the liners, correct? If those ever needed another change, just repeat the process, correct?
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
There is also the area at lower portion of the liner where the liner seals the cooling jacket, in most cases seal rings are used, and after time the sealing rings can erode the surface in the block, requiring repair as well.
Maybe someone with direct experience on that engine will contribute.
MikeL
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
Interesting. How is this repair performed?
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
----------------------------------------
The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
I recently did a plant upgrade on older natural gas engines that had been in service since 1983, with an average annual runtime of 8400 hrs/year, so each engine had about 268,000 hrs. Those engines had top end overhauls every year-cylinder heads, turbo's, fuel system repairs, about every three years major overhauls (what we called in frames), that added liners and rings, and crank bearings. Each engine had two shop overhauls down to bare block, that included machining the counterbores, top decks, and line bores in their life. Those engines ran 100% of their rated load all the time.
I think the longest running plant I worked on was in Australia, with the engines installed in 1947, they were gradually replaced from 2009 to 2012, the oldest engine had about 425,000 hours on it, as I remember those engines averaged about 6500 hrs/year at an average load factor of about 60%.
I'm sure someone else here has had contact with longer running engines, I know some manufacturers have cited 500,000 hours on some of their engines. So well built properly maintained heavy duty engines can last many years and rebuilt many times, virtually all I know of using wet liner type technology. Some industrial diesels did use dry sleeves but usually higher speed smaller units used in boats and standby generators.
We used to use a formula that CAT came up with for "equivalent miles" I'm sure some sales guy thought it up for our engines that were used in both industrial and on hiway trucks, they used 1 engine hour equaled 40 miles, which actually seemed to work out pretty close for one of our most popular models. So if I apply that to my two old gassers 268,000 X 40 = 10,720,000 miles (at or near full load all the time).
Not really a good comparison to your car engine, but wet liner technology has been around a long time and used in engines that easily go beyond your 3 million mark all the time. Like everything else, I'd say it's not just the liner, but how well the block supports the liner and other moving parts (like the crank) that provides the overall longevity to the engine.
MikeL.
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
They bought their first truck with ? 800k miles on it, and it suffered a failure at about 1.3 million and got an overhaul at that point.
They've since upgraded to new rigs that meet the Calif emissions, so the old beasts have moved to other owners. (They have his and hers rigs)
But, that's over a million miles on the original engine. If overhauled properly, you'd expect a similar time of service.
So, 3 million miles should require only two overhauls.
ymmv.
Jay Maechtlen
http://www.laserpubs.com/techcomm
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
RE: Wet Cylinder Liners
IIRC, that engine has been used in RR/Bentley for many years and continually improved. What year is yours?
Today's petrol engines with thin low tension moly rings, computer controls of fuel, ignition and warmup and double overdrive automatic gearboxes will vastly outlast the previous generations. We've been rebuilding engines for fifty years and are continually amazed that many of the late models exhibit no cylinder bore wear after 150,000 - 250,000 miles. The last century designs at 100,000 miles would have .020" or greater cylinder taper, coked and burned valves, worn valve guides.
FWIW, we've doubled the effective life of some obsolete engines by converting them to better piston and ring materials, more accurate machining and assembly, and electronic controls.
jack vines