sleeves
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sleeves



As stated, cylinder wall cracks can be repaired by installing a sleeve in that particular cylinder bore.  It's been going on for ages and they should be available for what you need.  BUT, some will totally shy away from a vehicle with a sleeved block when it comes time to sell--almost as quickly as if they discover an inexpensive "rebuilt" engine has been installed.  A better alternative might be to investigate one of the Chrysler reman engines or getting a block for a 413 from Mopar Performance (bare block ready to do finish machining on and not necessarily one of their siamese-bore race blocks).
 
To sleeve the block, the cylinder bore is over-bored until there is no cylinder wall left and then the new sleeve is installed and trimed as necessary.  Quite labor intensive!  Engine disassembly is required too.  End result, you might as well plan on a rebuild at the same time so you don't end up paying the same labor twice.  You'll need a new piston and ring set too, at the very least.  Sure, you're project will escalate to past $2000.00 but it'd be better to investigate ALL of your alternatives first and look at the long term issue instead of a stop gap repair that could end up costing much more when it comes time to resell the vehicle (should that ever occur).  Remember too, that $500.00 is just related to the sleeve and there might be other issues that will escalate that figure significantly.
 
The other side is that if the engine got hot enough for a cylinder wall to crack, the rest of the block might well need to be decked and line honed to make it right again.  If one cylinder wall was cracked, it might also be that it was due to too much or an overbore at an earlier time and others might be getting ready to do similar.  Oversize pistons are usually stamped with their overbore size on the compression surface.
 
From a collectorable orientation, unless you're trying to maintain exact originality with correct date codes and such on the block, even going so far as to put a later 440 in the same place might be a viable alternative and keep all of the outer cosmetics correct, except possibly for the later model valve covers required by the later bolt pattern.  Either the painted ones or possibly the chromed factory models that were around circa 1967.  No hot rod treatment, just a stock spec 440.  Of course, whatever course you take, be fully up-front with future potential purchasers about what you did.
 
What I might recommend, first, is to get the car to a competent mechanic and have them pull the engine.  Their involvement would only be in removal and then later reinstallment of the engine.  Have a competent machine shop disassemble and inspect the engine for other damage/wear issues before doing anything.  At that point, they should be able to give you a good estimate of what is really needed, hopefully.  This is where an old-line engine rebuilder's expertise comes in very handy as they'll know what they are looking at instead of just guessing or quoting a "worst case scenario" price.  Talk it out with them as both of y'all go over things before any other work is done.  It might help to do the homework first and talk to a couple of engine shops (not a chain rebuilder!) prior to anything happening.  Pay them for work has been done too.
 
Personally, I'd look at the Mopar Perf "normal" high performance block assemblies for the 413s as a method to "reblock" the engine.  Recondition existing parts as possible, then get the whole thing balanced and reassembly with OEM-spec quality items can result in the quality engine that will or should make the car worth more when it's sold without hurting originality.  Not the cheapest way out but probably the best long term solution.  Too many people would consider a sleeve a "patch job" (unless they were wanting a complete "numbers match" situation, which I don't think is really operative in the Imperial type marketplace) and makes them wonder what else might have been patched up instead of more money spent on a better fix.
 
Enjoy!
W Bell
 


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