Technical Go for it?

If this is the worst or possibly the only crack , would you stitch it or chunk it?

 

Stitch and sleeve. Don't scrap it. They don't make them anymore.

 

Thanks , that was my plan just wanted some confidence. The rest looks really good but will know for sure when it is magnafluxed. It is a 52- 53 out of a truck I believe according to the oil pan. Hoping I can use rods and crank, they all look good .

 

Update, went to a local machine shop in my tiny town and he was all in to do the work in this flathead. He has been in business for 50 years, I have had him do some work way back but not on a flathead. He actually had one in the shop he had just finished. He said he would stitch the crack and add a sleeve , said he used sleeves with flange at top. Funny thing, I sold this guy my 43 acre farm back in 1996, he said the up keep was too much so he has since sold the place. Anyway , glad to have a shop within 4 miles of my house that can do the work.

 

Cool you're going to save it, perfect un-cracked flathead blocks are getting pretty tough to find and it's a shame to toss a fixable one. When the perfect ones run out, I'll bet in the future blocks with "only one crack" will be the sought-after ones.

 

I think you are right, reminds me of back in the seventies we would pass on a car with rust issues but now with all the patch panels, more affordable mig and tig welders, just about anything is fixable. With the already high cost to build a flathead, a stitch job or sleeve or whatever really dont add a lot in the scheme of things considering your going to drop 3000.00 to 4000.00 in a flathead. I Am ashamed to tell how many flatheads I have passed up that were cheap or gotten rid of over the years. Will keep eye open now. Never know what is lurking about.

 

By all means don’t scrap it,,,,,that is an easy fix .
A sleeve and stitching,,,,,it will be like New almost .

Tommy

 

I´m just having a block with a crack like yours repaired. He´s plasma welding it ( whatever that is) and putting a sleeve and a new valve seat(s) in. Cost will be around 1500€. All other seats and bores are like new, so we figured we ´d repair what we have instead of finding another ( possibly also cracked) block and fix that - if that´s your only crack your golden. Flatheads are not on every corner around here...