Engine Revive "Plan C"

[m38inmaine]

So as not to confuse things with the engine I am having issues with I thought I would start a new post. Rick, you may want to pop a nitro before reading this and any one with medical devices make sure your batteries are charged.

I am taking a break from my current engine issues and moving on to the second engine I picked up in October, this was stuck on cylinder #1, soaked in every possible solution including expensive Kroil, no movement after 3 months. So today I decided to go brute force, bigger hammer mode and convince the piston to come out. I pulled the pan, nice and clean in there, removed the cap from #1 rod, the bearing shows little wear. I took an aluminum pipe and ran it down inside the back of the piston, several good wacks with a maul and I perceived movement then the top half of the piston broke out, moved the pipe over more to the center of the piston and more thrashing and the pistom came right out.

I wiped out the cylinder bore then gave it a good clean with the ball hone, it cleaned up quite nice, a few minor imperfections that should not bother, I am going to rob the piston assembly out of the engine with the cracked block. I am also going to pull the other 3 pistons out of this one and clean them up and also give a light ball hone. The cylinder head had one exhaust bolt broke off and I managed to drill/tap and repair it, it does not look like it was leaking so I am going to leave it alone, I am going to replace the valve stem seals and toss it right back on. Next I will bolt on the minimum parts necessary to make it run and see what happens. I figure I will have $100 in parts to see what happens, who knows it may be a runner, more to come.

[Mark]

To free up the piston, wouldn't heating up the block/cylinder work?

[m3a1]

Ah HAH! We finally come down to it. His true colors are showing. Not one, but TWO big hammers.

BFH Merit Badge - AWARDED!

...and as an added bonus -

I'll Ignore This Uncooperative Engine Until It Heals Itself Merit Badge - AWARDED!

[m38inmaine]

Failure is not an option, I still have one more engine, it too is stuck on #1 with no oil movement, it will receive the same treatment if this one should fail, enjoy the show.

[Mark]

Ask the internet how to free up a stuck engine piston, you'll get alot of answers!

[m38inmaine]

I pulled #1 piston from engine #1 to use in engine #3 that I hammered out, to my surprise the top ring was broken in half, no ring ridge and this engine ran great, pulled #2 and the top ring was broken, #3 luckily was good and #4 top ring broken. I then pulled the remaining pistons out of the current engine #3, no broken rings but the top ring on all three was stuck pretty well. I ran them through the ultrasonic cleaner and carefully worked them free and now have a set of 4 to go back in, I kept the original connecting rod on #1 so as to at least match up the crank surfaces.

While I had the cleaner up and running I also took apart the carb and gave that a good clean, it had some old fuel residue inside, kind of like salt crystals. I am going to re try it on my problem engine to see if there is any change before i mount it on this one. Working on cleaning up the cylinder head now.

[rickf]

Been there, done that. I even used the original head gasket over. Put fresh oil in and fired it up. That one had two rusted cylinders, one so bad that once it broke free it would not turn all the way over due to the amount of crap on top of the piston. Blew the stuff out with the air gun and wire wheeled the cylinders, threw the head back on the old gasket. Done. And I have destroyed more pistons than I can count, sometimes there is just no other way.

[m38inmaine]

Thanks Rick, that gives me hope, doing a red neck valve grind now(lapping paste), intakes look good, exhaust a few pits but it's certainly going to be much better than it was, also replacing the stem seals while I'm in here. I am using a new valve grind gasket kit with a new head gasket etc.

[m38inmaine]

With the original engine now running correctly this will be on the back burner for a short time but I will get back to it as soon as I can.