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Cracked Block from freeezing! Help!!


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Hi I have 1999 Sunsetter VLX and we got a little bad weather over a few days and i just noticed i did some major damage to my engine! I have a cracked block now and have no idea what to do? how much does this cost to fix? is it just easier to replace with a rebuilt engine? It froze and pushed out a big chunk of the block! about 4 inces long. I have some photos to share but i dont know how to upload them. any help would be much appreciated!

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Hi I have 1999 Sunsetter VLX and we got a little bad weather over a few days and i just noticed i did some major damage to my engine! I have a cracked block now and have no idea what to do? how much does this cost to fix? is it just easier to replace with a rebuilt engine? It froze and pushed out a big chunk of the block! about 4 inces long. I have some photos to share but i dont know how to upload them. any help would be much appreciated!

That sucks man. I've never had a cracked block on a Malibu but with our old Glastron (Inline 6) we got a sudden cold spell (-5C) and the block cracked. We just replaced the block and it was much cheaper than it would have been to do the entire engine.

My advice is talk to your local Malibu dealer to get some figures for $$. do you think you can do the reapir yourself?

As far as pics, as a free member you''ll need to upload them on a different site (photobucket etc) and then link them here. If you get a piad membership youu can upload pics directly to the malibu crew.

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If you can do the repair yourself, you can get a used 350 short block for fairly cheap. The crappy part is you'll need a means of being able to pull the motor. Not a hard task ijf you have the equipment to do so.

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When we bought our response we had it looked over at the dealer to find out it had a cracked block, the boat was on consignment and the gentlemen selling it had to replace the block before our purchase, it was almost 3k with the labor......... Cry.gif

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I would certainly check into getting it covered by your insurance company. If they will cover it - take it to your local dealer and have them do it.

If you not covered, and are comfortable working on engines, I would recommend pulling the engine and swapping all you parts over to a new block (heads, intake mani, ignition parts, alt, water pump, etc). That would certainly be the cheapest way to go.

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I would certainly check into getting it covered by your insurance company. If they will cover it - take it to your local dealer and have them do it.

If you not covered, and are comfortable working on engines, I would recommend pulling the engine and swapping all you parts over to a new block (heads, intake mani, ignition parts, alt, water pump, etc). That would certainly be the cheapest way to go.

Insurance almost never covers damage due to freezing.

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I would certainly check into getting it covered by your insurance company. If they will cover it - take it to your local dealer and have them do it.

If you not covered, and are comfortable working on engines, I would recommend pulling the engine and swapping all you parts over to a new block (heads, intake mani, ignition parts, alt, water pump, etc). That would certainly be the cheapest way to go.

Insurance almost never covers damage due to freezing.

I didn't think it was likely, but I would certainly make a call just in case.

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hard to tell by the picture but that looks like the head to me Dontknow.gif

I agree looks like the head. Kind of interesting how it looks like there was some other material (JBWeld?) in that area. Were any of the freeze plugs deformed or pushed out? The reason I ask this is that a friend of mine had his block crack above the knock sensor after he had supposedly drained it. Seems not all the water drained out because the hole was partially blocked. Anyway the fix was to JBWeld the area were it cracked and it was as good as new. This worked because the crack was to the exterior of the engine and the engine is not presurized in a boat. I believe he did the jbweld fix and then ran the engine with a fake a lake to ensure that there were no other issues, such as internal cracks to the "working" parts of the engine. It might be worth a try as you have allready written the engine off. BTW If just a head is bust then that's a whole lot cheaper to fix. After taking a closer look I don't think there was JBWeld allready on there.

Edited by colobuskier
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hard to tell by the picture but that looks like the head to me Dontknow.gif

I agree looks like the head. Kind of interesting how it looks like there was some other material (JBWeld?) in that area. Were any of the freeze plugs deformed or pushed out? The reason I ask this is that a friend of mine had his block crack above the knock sensor after he had supposedly drained it. Seems not all the water drained out because the hole was partially blocked. Anyway the fix was to JBWeld the area were it cracked and it was as good as new. This worked because the crack was to the exterior of the engine and the engine is not presurized in a boat. I believe he did the jbweld fix and then ran the engine with a fake a lake to ensure that there were no other issues, such as internal cracks to the "working" parts of the engine. It might be worth a try as you have allready written the engine off. BTW If just a head is bust then that's a whole lot cheaper to fix. After taking a closer look I don't think there was JBWeld allready on there.

No none of the freeze plugs were out or deformed!

Does anyone know if that crack can be JB welded?

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hard to tell by the picture but that looks like the head to me Dontknow.gif

I agree looks like the head. Kind of interesting how it looks like there was some other material (JBWeld?) in that area. Were any of the freeze plugs deformed or pushed out? The reason I ask this is that a friend of mine had his block crack above the knock sensor after he had supposedly drained it. Seems not all the water drained out because the hole was partially blocked. Anyway the fix was to JBWeld the area were it cracked and it was as good as new. This worked because the crack was to the exterior of the engine and the engine is not presurized in a boat. I believe he did the jbweld fix and then ran the engine with a fake a lake to ensure that there were no other issues, such as internal cracks to the "working" parts of the engine. It might be worth a try as you have allready written the engine off. BTW If just a head is bust then that's a whole lot cheaper to fix. After taking a closer look I don't think there was JBWeld allready on there.

No none of the freeze plugs were out or deformed!

Does anyone know if that crack can be JB welded?

Still curious how cold it was and where you are located?

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hard to tell by the picture but that looks like the head to me Dontknow.gif

I agree looks like the head. Kind of interesting how it looks like there was some other material (JBWeld?) in that area. Were any of the freeze plugs deformed or pushed out? The reason I ask this is that a friend of mine had his block crack above the knock sensor after he had supposedly drained it. Seems not all the water drained out because the hole was partially blocked. Anyway the fix was to JBWeld the area were it cracked and it was as good as new. This worked because the crack was to the exterior of the engine and the engine is not presurized in a boat. I believe he did the jbweld fix and then ran the engine with a fake a lake to ensure that there were no other issues, such as internal cracks to the "working" parts of the engine. It might be worth a try as you have allready written the engine off. BTW If just a head is bust then that's a whole lot cheaper to fix. After taking a closer look I don't think there was JBWeld allready on there.

No none of the freeze plugs were out or deformed!

Does anyone know if that crack can be JB welded?

Still curious how cold it was and where you are located?

I live in calgary canada and the temp hit a low of 9 f which was -13 celcius for like 3 days.

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You can tell it is the block.....the knock sensor is right there in one of the pics

Will have to agree with Ruff,... that is a crack in the block not the head. Note the outer head bolts above the crack in the pic.

One other comment,... if you are planning on reusing the heads, I'd check them very closely for cracks as well.

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hard to tell by the picture but that looks like the head to me Dontknow.gif

I agree looks like the head. Kind of interesting how it looks like there was some other material (JBWeld?) in that area. Were any of the freeze plugs deformed or pushed out? The reason I ask this is that a friend of mine had his block crack above the knock sensor after he had supposedly drained it. Seems not all the water drained out because the hole was partially blocked. Anyway the fix was to JBWeld the area were it cracked and it was as good as new. This worked because the crack was to the exterior of the engine and the engine is not presurized in a boat. I believe he did the jbweld fix and then ran the engine with a fake a lake to ensure that there were no other issues, such as internal cracks to the "working" parts of the engine. It might be worth a try as you have allready written the engine off. BTW If just a head is bust then that's a whole lot cheaper to fix. After taking a closer look I don't think there was JBWeld allready on there.

No none of the freeze plugs were out or deformed!

Does anyone know if that crack can be JB welded?

JBW will work if you can hammer the crack back in and sand the paint off to let it stick good. i would repaint the spot and then check for leaks. If no leaks and no water is going inside the block you would be ok to run.

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hard to tell by the picture but that looks like the head to me Dontknow.gif

I agree looks like the head. Kind of interesting how it looks like there was some other material (JBWeld?) in that area. Were any of the freeze plugs deformed or pushed out? The reason I ask this is that a friend of mine had his block crack above the knock sensor after he had supposedly drained it. Seems not all the water drained out because the hole was partially blocked. Anyway the fix was to JBWeld the area were it cracked and it was as good as new. This worked because the crack was to the exterior of the engine and the engine is not presurized in a boat. I believe he did the jbweld fix and then ran the engine with a fake a lake to ensure that there were no other issues, such as internal cracks to the "working" parts of the engine. It might be worth a try as you have allready written the engine off. BTW If just a head is bust then that's a whole lot cheaper to fix. After taking a closer look I don't think there was JBWeld allready on there.

No none of the freeze plugs were out or deformed!

Does anyone know if that crack can be JB welded?

JBW will work if you can hammer the crack back in and sand the paint off to let it stick good. i would repaint the spot and then check for leaks. If no leaks and no water is going inside the block you would be ok to run.

It worked for the friend of mine that had nearly the same problem. Doesn't hurt to try it. You have allready given up on the block anyway. Might save you some cash and time. Yahoo.gif

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hard to tell by the picture but that looks like the head to me Dontknow.gif

I agree looks like the head. Kind of interesting how it looks like there was some other material (JBWeld?) in that area. Were any of the freeze plugs deformed or pushed out? The reason I ask this is that a friend of mine had his block crack above the knock sensor after he had supposedly drained it. Seems not all the water drained out because the hole was partially blocked. Anyway the fix was to JBWeld the area were it cracked and it was as good as new. This worked because the crack was to the exterior of the engine and the engine is not presurized in a boat. I believe he did the jbweld fix and then ran the engine with a fake a lake to ensure that there were no other issues, such as internal cracks to the "working" parts of the engine. It might be worth a try as you have allready written the engine off. BTW If just a head is bust then that's a whole lot cheaper to fix. After taking a closer look I don't think there was JBWeld allready on there.

That's a pretty extensive crack. I don't know if Old JB will be up to that task.

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