engine (?) block alloy

[Old Ironsights]

Somewhen I recall a discussion about some sort of tin-alloy that you can find at junkyards, but I don't remember what it was called..

Help?

[35remington]

Babbitt. It's found in the main bearings for the crankshaft. Copper-lead alloy, as I recall.

[Old Ironsights]

Ah. Thanks!

[MT Gianni]

It should be in the rod bearings also. Gianni

[chevyiron420]

there is many diferent alloys in engine bearings. also the modern trend is to keep the babbit real thin on a steel or other shell. i cant imagine there is much useable metal there these day's.-phil:cbpour:

[Linstrum]

Babbitt alloy was invented as part of a competition sponsored by the United States War Department (now Department of Defense) sometime back around the 1830s as an improved bearing material for steam engines in warships. The original alloy was tin-based and was basically plain old everyday pewter that was used for dishes and pitchers back then.

There are two series if babbitt alloys, lead-based and tin-based. Tin babbitt often has a small amount of lead in it and lead babbitt often has a small amount of tin it. Both may contain copper, antimony, cadmium, and arsenic. The tin-based alloys are far superior to the lead based alloys for high rpm at heavy loads, so the tin based alloys are what are used nowadays for car engines. The railroad rolling stock originally used lead babbitt and a "hot box" was from the bearing running out of lubrication and getting hot enough to ignite the oily rags used for wicking oil to the iron bearing shaft. Railroad cars don't use babbitt bearings anymore, in the 1950s they changed over to Timken tapered roller bearings. There are still old railroad cars around with babbitt wheel bearings but they are few and far between.

If you know an engine rebuilder who has a tremendous business volume you might get enough bearing shells to make it worthwhile to collect the bearings as a source of tin. Like has just been said by the other guys here, the amount of babbitt used nowadays is miniscule, I'm guessing that in a 350 Chevy you might get enough babbitt to cast up half a dozen 180 grain boolits out of the whole engine. Also, a lot of engine manufacturers are using aluminum bearing alloys to replace the expensive tin-based babbitt, Caterpillar Tractor Company started that trend all the way back in 1933 and all of their diesels have aluminum bearings.

[kywoodwrkr]

I just helped put some bearings(rod) in a 4 cylinder engine the other day.
I can assure you, being the packrat that I am, if those old bearings had ANYTHING worth keeping, they would have come home with me.
I cannot imagine trying to reclaim the tin and other alloys from the bearing shells.
Besides, when the bearings are replaced, 9 out of 10 times the soft metal is gone. Usually the reason for replacing.
Guess what I'm saying is if the bearings are good, the engine is worth much more unassembled than what you will garner from the bearings.
If the bearings are bad, there isn't much usable metal to recover.
This is assuming the engine has been disassembled already and no effort is necessary to get to the bearings.
My felings are I can wander around almost any parking lot and find one wheel weight.
In my opinion it will provide more usable metal than all the bearings in a V8 engine.
V8s have 6 main bearings and 8 rod bearings.
Of course your mileage may vary!
FWIW
DaveP kywoodwrkr

[sdiver40]

I'm glad someone asked this question. I had about 80lbs of Babbit left over from the cotton mill days. I just finished melting it down this evening into 3lb. ingots. Now I just have to get me one of those cool CabineTree testers so i'll know what I really have and what I need to add to it!

[drinks]

Babbitt alloys are all over the place, a friend sent some from Canada that had the analysis with it and it was about 45% Tin, 50% lead and 5% antimony.
Another I got was about 90% lead, 5% tin, 5% antimony and .05% copper and nickel.

[JeffinNZ]

Big subject babbitt. Bit like asking "I have been given a dog, what breed is it?"

I scored a large amount on a bearing. It is high tin content IE 90% and I am adding it to WW about 2% ratio. The resulting alloy is making fantastic bullets.