06-03-2011, 08:45 AM
Yeah, would you believe that when I was in the Coast Guard back in the early 1960's, we had a Detroit Diesel 8-268a gen set in the engine room that had the surface that the O-rings seat against at the base of the cylinder liners corroded so badly that coolant just poured into the sump! All of us in the engine room crew thought that we would need to bring a machinist and a welder in to clean up the block, weld it up and machine a new surface for the O-rings. The engineering officer gave us an epoxy kit from Devcon (very similar to J-B Weld), and told us to mix up the epoxy, and put it in place. After letting it set up for 24 hours, we were to sand it smooth with emery cloth, and then go ahead and rebuild the engine. You should have heard all of the kidding that took place after the engineering officer left the engine room! The thing was, we did it and it worked!! 2 years later when I got out of the Coast Guard, the engine was still running with no sign of water leaks! Of course it was a typical Detroit Diesel, so it leaked copious amounts of oil into the bilges!