Wide open Wed. Making the rear main cap for the BAE hemi repair & welding & repair an outboard head

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:11]Heat.

[00:00:14]Heat.

[00:00:31]Good.

[00:00:31]>> Yeah, it's good.

[00:00:34]>> I just missed the uh Anthony milling it down, knocking that weld off that my brother just welded up. Unfortunately, that's the only way you can repair these heads. They get so corroded in the water jackets from the salt water. It's odd on these four stroke outboards. a two-stroke outboard.

[00:00:54]You can take one apart, it's been together since 1958, and they're not corroded. For some reason, these later model four strokes, the salt water just eats away at them. And uh what is it? This a Suzuki head or Yamaha? It's a Yamaha head. And Yamaha doesn't offer a replacement head. And this motor is only 5 years old. So, it's either replace the whole outboard or they bring the head in here and we weld them up and remachine them. Uh it's kind of an expensive fix, but uh it's about the only alternative than than replacing the motor being you don't make a replacement head. So, uh, again, we welded up all around the water jackets, milled it down, and now I'm just going to valve job it, put it back together, and call the customer, and, uh, we'll be ready to go fishing this weekend again.

[00:01:49]So far, we got the block squared up, and we cut the housing bore bearing, and we cut the groove for the rear main seal and the oil release grooves. and getting ready now to put the holes in.

[00:02:08]And we're doing this on the Mazak because we can close the door, have the flood coolant.

[00:02:13]Little better than doing on that open mill. Let's do it in steps cuz it's only one cap. So, go ahead and run that now and put the holes in.

[00:02:38]Heat. Heat.

[00:03:04]This was the burned up cap that we're duplicating. And you'll notice, and this is a brad block. You notice the uh I pulled one of the caps off my TFX just to check the difference. TSX definitely a little more beefier of a cap and I guess the reason so for the for the cross mains crossbolted main or the the brad cap doesn't have any cross maines and we won't be able to hard coat anodized in time. This guy wants to get back together uh this weekend.

[00:03:51]Heat.

[00:04:13]Heat.

[00:04:17]Heat.

[00:04:27]Heat.

[00:05:15]Anthony setting the valve last year. We had a couple that were too tight. So instead of taking the valve out, it's only a couple of them to get our clearance right. I'll go ahead and uh just hit them on the surface grinder.

[00:05:29]I'll come over here and touch off. I put a little shim next to it to hold it on the magnetic base.

[00:05:41]Heat. Heat.

[00:06:00]Now to spark the wheel out. Make sure there's no hot spots.

[00:06:11]Shut the magnet off.

[00:06:14]Ready to go.

[00:06:17]>> Now Anony's going to check it with the feeler gauge tilt underneath it. That was good. That one needs more.

[00:06:25]>> Got enough clearance.

[00:06:26]>> I don't know.

[00:06:27]>> That one's still tight.

[00:06:28]>> That one's still tight. Yeah, >> that one's good.

[00:06:36]>> They're still tight.

[00:06:47]>> Have the head clamp. Well, you can't clamp it with the cams in it.

[00:06:51]>> No, you can't get to take another couple th off that one. Zip that cam back out and we'll knock this little boat head out. While we're making that main cap, that Brad Anderson in the back, I'm going to try to pop this scout motor together this afternoon. Also, just knock the cam bearings in.

[00:07:43]Yeah, >> good now.

[00:07:45]>> Good.

[00:07:46]>> Yep. Ready to go out.

[00:07:47]>> All right.

[00:07:48]>> Another job out the door. All right. Let me get back there and finish that main cap on that Brad.

[00:07:55]>> Yeah, I know. I'm jumping all around today on this Wednesday. Just going to finish up this uh outboard head. Just double check it. The inch pounds torque wrench. Make sure everything's good there. Go over all the cam tower bolts.

[00:08:23]All right, >> got that all finished up. That one's ready to go out. That's that little boat head we knocked out today that we started on this morning. We cleaned it yesterday. Glass beaded it up and then uh you saw my brother welded it up and then Anthony finished up the machine work and uh we set the buckets and the valve last. So, that's good to go. I'm going to get over here this evening uh while I'm going to pound this uh it's a a uh not an AMC International 304 engine for a an old Scout uh four-wheel drive Scout that uh came in for this quick rebuild. So, uh, polished the crank up, didn't need to be turned, and did a quick, uh, bore 30 over, decked the block, squared the deck up, and pound that together tonight.

[00:09:18]Uh, in the meantime, went and got a piece of material so I can start on that saddle for that Brad Anderson block repair when I was showing you that, uh, making that rear main cap this morning.

[00:09:31]Uh, got that going. um getting ready to go to the next step on the cap and we could profile mill the outside and uh but in the meantime trying to figure out these saddles I believe if you look closely enough at the surface finish I think these are probably cut out on a wire EDM for those that don't know what a wire EDM is the easiest analogy I could explain it is like a precision band saw it uses is what would looks like MIG wire from a MIG welder.

[00:10:05]It looks like MIG wire. And I actually have some wire here. I can show you uh because I plan on getting an EDM at some point in time. But the wire burns through and it very slowly electrical discharge cuts out your shape. And it's very precise. It's very slow, but uh you're only limited by the small diameter of your wire for your radius. to get in tight corners. It's going to be tough here to to get this radius cut out. Um, but uh I think I got to devis the plan.

[00:10:39]I'm going to cut it out of a a billet block and I'm going to set it up here on our VC tracks mill, the one we did the uh top fuel hoops on being it's just a onesie. Uh we're making the cap on the Mazak in the back. I'll set this up to make the saddle.

[00:10:54]And then uh I'll cut out the shape and I'm going to leave some excess. And then I'll use a slitting saw and I'll cut it off from the bottom uh to remove it. So it's gonna be almost like a die cavity is how we're gonna do this. So So stay tuned for that. I'll show you how we're going to do that so we can fix that block up. So yeah, I'm a little all over the place today. But uh it's Wednesday, short week. We had Memorial Well, the shop had Memorial Day off. I didn't.

[00:11:20]But, uh, we need to get this brad block, uh, fixed for the tractor pull racer and, uh, try to get that out for him this week. Uh, the crank, we magged this crank because it, remember, it really did a hell of a job on the, uh, on the rear main.

[00:11:38]And you can see here where it really gouged in where the bearing melted to the crank, fused itself to the crank. So, we're gonna have to grind that.

[00:11:49]Unfortunately, this is a billet Bryant crank, and I'd rather not weld on it if we don't have to. I use a welding as a last resort, but it's standard. So, we're going to turn the mains down 10 under. Uh, we're going to leave the rods alone. Rods look good enough we can polish it up and it'll be good to go.

[00:12:10]And, uh, again, magged it, no cracks.

[00:12:13]Checked it for straightness. It's got a little It's got a little bend to it.

[00:12:17]It's got about a 6,000 spend to it, but uh I believe once we put it on centers and index it and grind the mains, we'll be able to get it straight for him. So, that's what we're doing now. Uh that's it for today. Just thought I show you what was going on in the shop trying to get some stuff done. Oh, found some connecting rods for the Hemi. Uh next $500 I make, send it out and uh get those rods coming. I found a a set of rods that only had 10 runs on them, the length we need. So, uh I could put our motor together cuz time's slipping away.

[00:12:55]Sound like a broken record. I know. But anyway, let me get off here and do some devising how I'm going to make this saddle up. And uh once I get in my mind how I'm going to do it, start punching some buttons and I'll show you show you how it goes. And again, for those who don't know, the saddle is a repair that's already been done to the block. The block's already been blown up. The main cavity has been all eaten up. So instead of welding it up, it's almost like a big insert that's going to be on the bottom side. And the new cap will take care of the radius on the top side with lower actually. U this would be the top that lowers the cap. So you know what I'm talking about. So you get the gist of it. But anyway, check in with you guys a little bit later.

[00:13:38]Take it easy.