Unsticking a frozen engine...

[F Bill]

To be written...Post your favorite methods of unsticking a seized motor below...



Quite often an old Willys has sat around long  enough to rust the cylinder walls and seize...You , the new owner go and buy a fresh new battery, a rebuilt starter, and new cables, and guess what...it still sits there like a lump of iron. It is time to do the old soak and pray routine.. The posts below describe some ways our members have sucessfully gotten a set up motor to spin and run.

Ideally, you should take a look inside to see if it is cylinder wall rust that is holding that piston in place, or if something worse like a broken and jammed rod caused the problem. It is always safest to pull the cylinder head and look at the cylinders, clean up what you can see, and proceed from that point...but.......If you had it running last fall and now it won't spin. there are many potions that can be used to soak and lubricate the cylinder walls enough to free up a mildly stuck motor.

My personal favorite is genuine turpentine and automatic transmission fluid mixed 50/50.  I have also used PB Blaster straight out of the spray can, with some Marvel's Mystery Oil on the top. Soak it for a few days, then come back to try rocking the jeep oin high gear to break it free. You can use a wrench on teh front crank nut if so equipped, but be warned...increasingly long pipes applied to the wrench may break it free OR they can strip the crankshaft threads.

More to be added

Please post your good anti sticking remedies below.

[Comanche_County]

I used vinegar.

My 3a was left outside for about a year without the plugs in it and water had leaked down from the hood seam and rusted up the #4 cylinder.  IIRC, it took about 5 days but the vinegar turned the rust into a black sludge and while removing the flywheel I was surprised to find that the engine had come free.  

I believe distilled vinegar is a little stronger than cider varieties.  The stuff in grocery stores is dilluted, just check the labels for vinegar to water percentage.

[garage gnome]

50/50 mix of ATF and acetone. Works wonders on hit and miss engines.

[dadsjeep]

 ï¿½ � Nate, I think you've seen this before:

 ["Machinist's Workshop" recently published information on various penetrating oils. The magazine reports they tested these products for "break out "torque" on rusted nuts and bolts. A subjective test was made of popular penetrating oils, with the unit of merit being the torque required to remove the nut from a "scientifically rusted" bolt.
 Average torque load to loosen nut:

 No Oil used ........................516 foot pounds
 WD-40 ..................... ........238 foot pounds
 PB Blaster .........................214 foot pounds
 Liquid Wrench ......................127 foot pounds
 Kano Kroil .........................106 foot pounds
 ATF/Acetone mix..................... 53 foot pounds

 The ATF/Acetone mix is a "home brew" mix of 50/50 automatic transmission fluid and acetone. Note this "home brew" released bolts better than any commercial product in this one particular test.]

 ï¿½ � You've used the 'ZEP 45' before. �How does that work? � �Terry

[garage gnome]

Zep 45 works pretty well. I've unstuck lots of things just by spraying it down and free it up with no heat used.

[Stack_O_Lee]

It's been getting a bit of Marvel's Mystery Oil, and the acetone/atf treatment for a week.

I can see when looking through the spark plug holes that the second to the last valve (I'm not sure if it's exhaust or intake) on the number 4 cylinder is the only one not moving at all.

How much pressure is too much to apply? �I'm in no rush, and I'd rather not pull the head. �Supposedly, this was a good used engine that the previous owner had installed, but never fired up. �it was installed 25 years ago, and sat ever since.

Here is a video of it. �http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioanIqk9BKU



Found another use for the "go pro" camera. �Videotaping, and talking as I take the complicated pieces apart. �It's convenient to have it mounted to your head, to free your hands up.


I'll post what happens, and how long it took.

Josh.

[F Bill]

Another way to approach this is to take off the side cover over the valve chamber. Rotate your engine stand so the valves are down. Spray the suspect valve stem with Kroil or PB Blaster and keep soaking it over a week or so. keep working that engine back and forth ( You have lubricated things so you aren't turning it dry, right?) with a breaker bar and socket.

Removing the manifolds might improve access where you could carefully tap on the stem with something, gently.
Can you tell if the valve is stuck on its seat or partially open?

Best way on an engine that has sat for that long is head removal and valve removal. Anything less is a compromise but you may luck out. I would definitely find a way to prelube that engine before I ran it...either the grease gun filled with oil pumping into the oil galley, while turnign the motor over or a pressurized container of oil plumbed to the galley. Any assembly lube used 25 years ago may be long since dripped away. It would also be worth resealing the pan and double checking or replacing the rear main seal if it is the plastic half moon type.

[Stack_O_Lee]

As for lubing the engine so far, I did spin the engine around a couple of times while it was on the stand hoping that the oil that's in it (same 25 year old oil) would lube it a bit while it was upside down. �Nothing other than that. �It definitely isn't a fresh rebuild, so there's no chance of any assembly lube.

After you asked if it was stuck up I checked, and sure enough it was stuck open just a little off the seat. �I ended up pulling the manifold, and lubed up the stem as best I could from the port hole for the manifold. �Then I said, ah heck, and pulled the head. �Then I made this video. �http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULenxwhBnqE

In hindsight I should have been lubing the stem each time I got it to move, but next time......................

Here's the end result. �http://youtu.be/S7rxZ_k-fFc �I wasn't quite sure how to see if they were sealed, so I came up with this idea. �Not sure what it means? �haha �I'm going to assume that when it runs, they'll seat in a little better, and be completely sealed.

I was definitely going to pre-lube before I started it. �I'll have to research the above two methods, and/or I also have a 2nd distributor that's pretty beat up. �Can this engine be lubed from spinning the distributor with a drill technique?

Thanks again for the tips.

[Ryan_M]

If nothing else, I am now an even bigger fan of the "GoPro" camera. Which one do you have?

[F Bill]

The oil pump gear drives the oil pump, which has a slot the end of the distributor shaft goes into, so the short answer is you can't use a drill to prime the engine. You will need to have a pressurized vessel hooked to one of the oil galley ports on the left side of the block. Lacking the setup to do that, you can take the plugs out and crank the motor over with the starter until pressure shows on your gage, but that is nowhere as good for teh motor as prelubing it.

[F Bill]

Just looked at your video.. That valve was just a little stuck , wasn't it...

I'd still turn the motor upside down so you can soak the stem from the bottom with PB or Kroil or liquid wrench.. And before you run it you may want to get some engine oil on it as well.

As far as your test goes, you had the right idea, but ya should have put your hose in the output end of the vac, and used soapy water on top of the closed valve. Minor bubbling is OK< but major streams of bubbles need to be addressed. If you use compressed air you can get almost any valve with normal springs in it to bubble some, especially if the guides aren't too round.

When I went to auto tech school back in 1979, one demonstration the instructors did was dropping an old valve on the floor just after they had ground its face in the valve grinder. Then they would put it back in the machine and try to regrind it, seeing if it had bent. It is amazing just how little it takes to bend a valve. Just dropping it on the floor can bend it as much as .002 or more.

One thing I did notice in your video was the oil filler tube. It looks like you may have a DJ part there...What casting number and serial number is on your block? The engine looks great by the way.  

[Stack_O_Lee]

It's the gopro hero hd, I think. �I bought it at Costco two years ago for $189, which was a really good deal at the time. �I love it, and now that I can record disassembly of parts, I love it even more.

I'll definitely look into pressurizing the oil for the prelube. �I'll also get her turned upside down to oil all of those stems. �
Yeah, that sucker was stuck for sure, haha! �I really wasn't letting more than the weight of the hammer hit it, at the most. � �I had no idea how easily bent they were....................I'm hoping for the best.

The cylinders look like they're in really good shape, and the pistons just had a bit of carbon build up. �I'm not sure what the engine is from, but it's not the original, because that's sitting in a pile on the side of the house. �The number on this one is 3J172924. �The number on the original is 3J58414.

and this is the number cast into the left lower side    SD 908758 15