A friend of mine traded in a Ford that had been repaired that way. That crack was 2/3 the length of the block. I repaired it as below. First thing to check is take a good center punch and see if it will make indentations in the weld. If so you are lucky as some cast rod is what they call machineable and some is not. If it is grind it all down and then pressure test. Any small pin holes can be then repaired by the cold crack repair method calling &quot;pinning&quot; grind those off and you will never know it was repaired. Questions?