dixon kenner scribed:
Subject: Methinks I am in trouble...
A saga of a stuck Rover. (Come Rover, come on now!)
> So the bores are nice and shiney and look like new.
> The lower half has a nice clean sheen of oil across it.
> Can a piston take much force from below?
> PS. The bearing shells are in excellent shape. What else is new.
This brings back memories of the International T6 Dozer with a seized
engine that I revived from sitting in a feild for 7 years, so I could use
it to prep the ground for my shop. It had water standing in 2 cylinders,
one was pretty rusty. After pulling the head, somewhat cleaning and soaking
the bores in kero/WD40, I got to work. I had to hammer the valves back and
forth to get them loose. After initial puttering, I worked up to a piston
sized dowel or 2x4, and a big hammer. Thunk, thunk, thunk, working from
piston to piston. (From above, I never did pull the pan- it was big, and buried
under tons of steel...) I also ended up using a Snap-on breaker bar on the
crank bolt, with an extension pipe bringing it to about 5 feet. Worked it
back and forth, *jumping* on the end of the bar! (You calculate the forces-
200 pounds, in motion, along a 5 foot lever!) After an hour or 2 of this,
you could just feel the front piston start to wiggle. (crank twisting just
a bit.) More oil, more pounding and torquing, and the motion increased,
first a little, and then I had a turning crank. More oil, cleaning, hand
cranking. I honed the rough cylinders in place. I also had to oil and hammer
the lifters loose in their bores. Starting up that old behemoth, with
fire belching right out the exhaust manifold, and it's loud, low rumbling
sputter was quite a joy. I spent maybe a hundred bucks, on gaskets, seals,
carb kit and all. Never did put a muffler on that thing...
Rover:
It sounds like this engine was running when parked, and just sat 15 years.
OK, so you've got stuck rings. Use only a large, blunt pounding stick,
to distribute the forces accross the piston. Tap near the edges, rather
than the center. Move around. Hit the sucker, firmly, gently, and often.
And, you can work from both sides. Tap up on the con-rod with a hunk
of wood as well. I suppose your worst case situation, is having to
replace a busted piston- Could be worse. Oil & check the lifters and stuff
too. It might not hurt to pull/clean the oil pump if you can, as well
as a trial main bearing cap.
________________________________________________________
Roger Garnett (Roger_Garnett@cornell.edu)
"The South Lansing Centre For Wayward Sports Cars"
"All donations of stray, orphaned, odd, neglected, etc.
sports cars and bits in need of a good home accepted."
"The drop off bin is right there- behind the barn..."
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