What's the deal with Atlas engine cylinder sleeves?

[modok]

Customer brought in a 5 cylinder atlas engine and it appears........... to be an aluminum block with flanged iron cylinder sleeves.
Really? I thought that concept was dead a generation ago.
As far as i know, you design an engine this way and it works for a time.....but eventually the sleeves move around and get coked oil behind them and it all goes to hell.
So what's the deal? DID it work fine?
If it didn't work...... what happened? Does it work? Was the Atlas a lemmon? I have no idea.
I just remember this series of engines won awards when it came out and after that not much was said, very quiet, and now t maybe they are all dead.
Is there anything TO know?
History repeating?

[ProPower engines]

The modern Rover engine uses a straight sleeve in an alloy block.
While they come loose over time the fix is a flanged sleeve so they stay put for ever.
The original blocks used a chemical retainer of some kind but they were prone to cracking behind the sleeve as well but its funny when they start to rattle. The noise sounds like a rod knock but its the sleeve sliding up and down hitting the head.

Early 60's tech for buick but I see why they sold the tooling and what ever the factory had to the UK car builders.

[modok]

I agree completely.
GM reinventing the wheel

[Daniel Jones]

The Buick and Oldsmobile 215 aluminum blocks were semi die-cast using tooling originally designed for aluminum transmission cases and were poured around ribbed cylinder liners. The ribbed liners do not slip. GM's problem was a relatively high rejection rate on the castings due to core shift during cooling. The blocks that passed core shift inspection are excellent. Rover used less sophisticated sand casting which presumably had a lower rejection rate. As I understand it, Rover chills the smooth liners and presses them into the block. A cheap preventative measure during a rebuild is to drill and tap a hole for a set screw at the bottom of each bore. I recall reading one source that believes cracking on later Rover blocks is not due to overheating but rather over-torquing the head bolts. FWIW, my machinist does not recommend the stiffer ARP head bolts or studs with the aluminum blocks.

[Dan Timberlake]

"GM's problem "

Also heard that over time electrolysis or something caused the 215s cast ribbed joint to get all nasty as only aluminum can.
Or maybe other locations touched by coolant.

No clue whether coolant can seep into the sleeve OD cast joint

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