4cyl Ohv 'tornado'

Dang that is neat.


And the first thought I have is...
Someone puts a Turbo on it and blows up never to give the dyno slip...

 

Cool. Never knew Kaiser made four-cylinder boat anchors, as well as the OHC six.

 

It's important to cover all sizes of boats.

 

The 230 did get off to a rocky start but went on to greater things in Argentina. It wasn't a bad engine-certainly better than the flatheads and F heads. It isn't in my boat anchor classification and was pretty unique for the time. In its final form, the performance wasn't much different than the 225.

 

Did they fix the problem of the timing chain jumping?

 

I think the oil leaks were the largest problem. There is a good thread on these at Old Willys
https://www.oldwillysforum.com/forum/index.php?threads/230-tornado-build-thread.15575/

I still have the one I pulled from a 62 wagon that no doubt still has all the initial design flaws. I bought that rather severely rolled rig for its Warn overdrive and ended up installing both the 4.10 gears and 2 hole knuckle in the 3B. Another shelf road victim.

 

What I remember most about those motors was in S.Korea when we got them the plugs fouled and missed pretty quickly,I rotated out spring of '69 and had no experience state side with them again.

 

I never knew the Argentines made a 4 cyl version, but they really developed the OHC 230 way beyond where Willys left it. The '63/'64 Wagons used these, but they were notorious for oil leaks. The flaw was they sandwiched an engine mounting plate with the front alloy timing cover. You couldn't keep the through-bolts from loosening, causing lots of oil leaks. A later redesign of the 230 for use in the M715 solved the problem by casting mounting bosses on the side of the engine block for the engine mounts. The engine was pretty reliable by this point. These were really neat engines with an overhead cam, huge valves, and a (nearly) hemi combustion chamber, all well ahead of their time.
Kaiser apparently at least looked into a 4 cylinder version of the OHC engine, likely to replace the F-134 that was very antiquated by the mid-'60s. I'll guess a the Buick 225 was the reason the 4 cyl OHC was not further considered.
-Donny

 

Being involved/employed with Jeep in the early '70s, I know that the 230 was reviled even then. The public was really sour on the 230, and I can see why the 4-cyl would not be welcome in the USA. It's a really interesting engine though ... Probably better than its reputation suggested. You could buy a 230 Wagoneer or J-truck cheap in '72-73, and many got the 265-283-260-289 treatment. You'd likely pay as much for the engine and adapter as the truck.

I don't know the details why, but the 230 M7xx trucks had a really short life in service too. They were coming out as surplus in good condition by 1972.

I recall the R&D for the 225 came from one or more dealerships in Colorado? Kaiser picked up the idea and went with it. Apparently GM was keen on selling the rights and tooling, which had to help push the idea along.

Interesting that a 4-cyl existed based on the 230. And it's OHC, not OHV.

 

Government policy was to "surplus" military vehicles at very low milages. For Jeeps it was typically 25K miles, and my M715 was about the same. It was brought back from Germany.

Other government agencies got first crack at them.

I heard that the 230 OHC, besides being a dog, also had a reputation for the timing chain jumping once the engine got a few miles on it. I suspect that is why mine died suddenly. But I loved the truck otherwise.