I finally got the stars aligned so I could work on my own stuff this
weekend.
My project is the 1973(?) Midget that supposedly was running when the
previous owner parked it, but when I got it the engine seemed to be
locked up.
I would guess that there are very few people that work on their cars
that have a worse place to do it than I have. I engineered a spreader
beam and connected it to the rafters in my garage. I bought a Harbor
Freight come-along and used that to pull the engine out. Well it takes
a pretty good effort in my garage to get TO the car. I still had to
pull the bellhousing bolts out but everything else was ready. I rolled
the car out and lowered the engine to the floor. Well my come-along
didn't have enough extension to reach the floor so I had to stop mid-way
and re-rig the thing with some additional chain that I had. I pulled
the flywheel, rear engine plate, oil filter adapter, water pump, and
after a long time finally got the distributor out. I hauled the engine
outside on the grass to pull the pan off.
I turned the engine on its side to take the pan off but I had forgotten
to drain the oil out first. I started sucking up the oil and putting it
into a container, and I got less than 1/2 quart, which is a bad sign. I
pulled the pan off and looked at one rod bearing which looked pretty
good. But the shafts of most of the connecting rods looked like they
had gotten real hot and had burned the oil and/or rusted. With a big
hammer and a punch I couldn't knock one of the pistons out. At that
time I was hot and tired, and still needed to put everything up and back
into the garage so I gave up. I could have tried the other 3 pistons
but I was confident that they were all well stuck. My guess is that
they ran it without oil and galled the pistons into the cylinders.
What I really need is a good short block, but I might get by with as
little as just a set of pistons. My dad was confident that if I brought
the block up to his shop he could get the pistons out for me. Then we
could evaluate the condition of the block and go from there.
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