Cylinder sleeve removal / replacement

Up here in Canada, if it's not raining, it\s BBQ season. Today, we have the Cylinder Block warming up for the sleeve installation. Lower O-rings lubed up with silicone grease and installed in the grooves in the block. Placed upside down on the grill and heated to 300F. for one hour to heat soak.

The sleeves have the upper o-ring installed and lubed with silicone grease. The lower sealing surface has been lubed with silicone also. The sleeves are sitting off to one side at an ambient temperature of 54 deg F.

After one hour of heat soaking, I removed the block from the BBQ and sat it down on my Black and Decker Workmate with the jaws open enough to allow the sleeves to fall through the middle of the jaws.

I had a small hammer and a large socket ready to tap the sleeves in place, but to my surprise, I was able to push the sleeves in place with my hands while wearing welding gloves. They felt like they bottomed out and the top of the sleeve felt like it was flat to the top surface of the cylinder block. I let the final assembly cool for about 10 minutes and then again checked the top surface. HMMMMM... now the sleeves feel about .003" to .005" proud of the top surface of the block. Well, sort of expected since the sleeves will grow as they soak up heat from the block. I  let the whole assembly cool to ambient temperature and check again and  tried tapping the sleeves in tighter using the socket and hammer. Sure enough, they moved in to within .001" of being flush. Took a healthy smack to move them. So for giggles, I grabbed a block of wood and tried to knock the sleeves back out. They're not moving !! So in the end, I'm happy with how this all worked out. Now we wait until I get it assembled and see if I have no leaks into the crankcase. (where's the emoji for fingers crossed)

 
BBQ at 300F with the sleeves off to one side.

 
Cylinder block "on the grill" and as an insurance I used a baking thermometer  to double check the temperature

 
Cylinder block on the Workmate with all the sleeves installed. Took less than 2 minutes to install the sleeves.

So as a final note, sleeves at 53F, cylinder block at around 320F so a differential temperature of around 270 deg F and the sleeves pushed in place with finger pressure.

The final step before calling this phase complete will be to send the block to the machine shop and get them to machine the deck flat. Probably about .005"- .008" should do it.