The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Is the motor frozen, or just stuck? "it ran when I parked it there"

Good morning, and I am sorry, I am sure this topic has been discussed to death, but my Grandfather has put me on notice that he will hook the loader up to it, put it in high gear, and drag that #expletive# until the motor frees up. "It is just a little stuck" he says. My short question is, do I let him?

The longer back history. It is a 1959 Viking with the 261 motor. "it ran when he parked it there" 12 years ago. Or maybe it was 15. Anyway, I have been going through the tech tip page up bringing back a dead motor. I pulled the spark plugs a couple of days ago, photographed them for reference, poured Marvel Mystery in the holes and put the plugs back in. You can see them here http://twoheelers.tumblr.com/ looks like #2 may have some rust on it? It did not seem that bad in the daylight in real life. The motor oil on the dipstick is solid black, no signs of water or anything else. We dragged the truck onto our mechanic slab the day after I did that, and yesterday, (two days after the plugs) I pulled all of the plugs again, put the truck in neutral, and tried to turn the flywheel with a bar. No such luck. I verified that the fan would turn, and the power steering pump was not frozen. My grandfather talked me into bypassing all the electrical checks on my tech tips list, so we hooked up the battery and hit the starter. The good news, no electrical fires, and the starter is trying to engage. Bad news, it cannot turn the motor either. Grandpa immediately wanted to hook the loader up and drag it around the yard in high gear until the motor turned. I talked him into letting me put more Marvel in and letting it sit.

So a longer question is, is there any other steps I can take besides what I have done now, and should we eventually try the loader remedy. Despite the fact that it has been sitting in the weeds outside the kitchen window for a decade plus, now that it is on the slab, he is itchy to get it running. While I share the enthusiasm, I don't want to break it more than it already may be.

Thanks for any help

I'd say give it some more time. I've heard stories of folks having to soak the cylinders weeks or even months to get some movement. Lots of different favorite concoctions around here....MMO, Kroil, ATF/ Acetone, etc.

Sort of doubt that this would stick the motor as tightly as yours is....but I guess you might try to get some penetrant down the lifter bores as well.

Get a can of KROIL!! Pull the spark plugs and soak the top of the cylinders. Pull the rocker cover and soak the rockers with KROIL as well as the lifters and lifter valleys. Let it set for a few says up to two weeks. Check it daily and try to spin the crank with the fly wheel. Back and forth movement helps to break it loose. KROIL works better than any other product I've used. There are many write ups on this forum concerning engines being stuck. You can get KROIL on the web. They have a complete website.

Tim

Is there any issue with mixing the Kroil and MMO that I already have in there? Some chemistry ditty "Add MMO to Kroil, never the reverse"?

I will read through the other threads, and I have read some already. I am really just wondering if rocking it back and forth in gear with a piece of heavy equipment is an actual solution, or if it steps over the redneck boundary.

If that "frees it up", you'll never know exactly what was seized and damaged, unless you take it apart anyway.

Connecting rods are the weak point on a stovebolt engine. If you tow it, especially if you've got pretty good traction, you'll bend or break a bunch of rods, and maybe trash the block. I use a borescope that attaches to my laptop to look inside cylinders and get an idea of just how much rust damage there is. It fits through 1/4" or smaller holes and has attachments like a mirror that can be used to look sideways after inserting the probe into a spark plug hole. They are available on Ebay for around $25.00. I wouldn't be without one!
Jerry

Perfect, thank you. I will threaten him with broken rods when he drives up with the loader :-)

I may have a buddy that has a scope. Good tip.

Haven't heard of any adverse chemical reaction mixing KROIL with MMO? Jerry was the one who turned me on to KROIL. I had an oil ring stuck on #5 cylinder in my '49 wit a 216 cu.in. I also had used MMO with not much luck. Jerry suggested using KROIL mixed with Acetone in a squeeze bottle and start the truck and keep it at about 1000 rpm. Slowly squeeze the mixture down the carb until died out being careful not to hydo lock the engine. Let it set over night and start it the next day. Long story, short the KROIL released the oil ring and no more puff of blue smoke on start up or after I decelerated. All the plugs are clean and burning as they should. Made the mistake of letting the engine idle too long tuning it and fuel fouled two sets of plugs. Replaced the plugs and drove it as it should be and no more problems. KROIL is the "bomb."

Jerry is correct...DO NOT PULL the truck in gear to try and free the engine up. Bent push rods, broken piston rods would only be the beginning of the problems. Soak the cylinders with KROIL, the valve train, lifters and lifter valley and let it sit. Rock the engine back and forth with the flywheel, just a little at a time. It will finally break loose. Then make sure you change the oil before trying to fire it up.

Tim

Will do, thank you very much for the advice!

Here's the deal. If Grandpa wants to pull it with the loader your going to have to do something drastic before he can get to it. Get a buddy or two to help out. Take all the plugs out! Put more penetrating oil in each cylinder. Put the truck in 3rd gear. Rock the truck back and forth by hand several times. Bet it breaks loose. If not let it soak longer and try again by hand. As Jerry said no pulling with another vehicle until its already loose. You will bend or break something. If you have to, handcuff Grandpa to his recliner until you get the motor loose then let him "help" you get it fired up. Good luck.

Luckily the weather is not optimal for the exterior mechanic slab we have it on, so I have a couple of days. I will keep prying and rocking and soaking. Can't find anyone local who stocks Kroil.

No recliners here! He just turned 80, and is still bucking hay bales and chasing longhorns around the county. We will find some side projects to do. I will just push it off the slab and we can work on another truck for a while

Buy direct from the source- - - -

www.kanolabs.com

They've got an 800 phone number, and once you're on their mailing list they will send you discount offers pretty regularly. I buy the stuff by the gallon and use a plastic squeeze bottle to dispense it- - - -much better than wasting money on aerosol cans.
Jerry

Jerry, I got one of those after you posted about a while back. Never realized they were so inexpensive. The one I got will connect to either a laptop or a smartphone. You can download the free app for the smartphone.
Haven't had to use it on an engine yet, but I have used it to inspect down a rusted out heater channel and clogged DWV pipe LOL. Good find/suggestion.
Oh and the one I got has the mirror, hook and magnet attachment too.

OP, patience and soak, patience and soak and what's been already been said LOL.

Hey, really stupid question here. (I am very mechanically ignorant, but willing and able to learn). When you say "patience soak", should I be reapplying the penetrating oils daily?

Here in AZ, it is less likely to be stuck hard. It had the hood on it and the plugs in and no water in oil. Humidity is not real high in AZ. Although you are at 4000 ft, I doubt if it's "back east" stuck. You don't need to add more soak oil if you can tell if it's still sitting on top of pistons.
Not clear on your efforts. Are you trying to turn flywheel with it in neutral? Are you sure it is in neutral? Why did you say "drag" it to the concrete pad? Are you trying to turn flywheel with plugs out, I hope? I'm just going over a basic check list first. No judgment involved. I don't think I would pull it yet. He may be right in doing it, but the risk is too high yet. Remember, he does have a lot of experience. I'm a grandpa also, I would rock it easy and try the crow bar more and soak more before jerking on it with a loader. You can snap the motor parts, the driveshaft parts and the differential parts. If there is no crank pulley/balancer nut, you can put two bolts in the pulley front 3 hole pattern and use a pry bar there to rock it. Keep this in mind. It will come loose if you keep at it without the loader. It will come loose. You do need a good penetrating oil, not mystery oil.
I would actually pull the motor before using a loader pull. Then you would have a nice place to sit next to it everyday and try it

Ha, judge away!
I aired up tires, drug it out of it's original parking space, knocked a tire off it's bead, fixed that, then drug it to the slab where we do the crawling around mechanic work. All in neutral (and no brakes) we just pulled it around with another truck. I am trying to turn the flywheel in neutral and with the plugs out. I did check like 15 times to make sure it was in neutral, because it was bugging me, and trying to turn it in gear is exactly something I would do. My grandfather agrees with your AZ take on the topic. He routinely lets vehicles sit for years on end, then fires them up, he was pretty sure that this would happen on this truck as well. Hopefully it will free up after a couple of days of soaking and prying. If not, I will push it off the slab and go for the long soak. We can do a lift kit on the Jeep or something to distract from the Chevy. There was only a tiny bit of rust on one of the plugs when I took it out.

Don't do this without Jerry saying it's OK BUT: Heat would be great to help unstick. Why couldn't a guy put two drop of gas in the plug hole and stick a torch to the hole. That would heat up the area and provide a mild power stroke. Do it one cylinder at a time and then try the crow bar. Pretty smart huh? Me and your Grandpa would get along great .

Funny, that was the recommend process to re-seat the bead on the 9-22.5 tire I broke free. I opted to have the local gas station wrestle with it instead. Pretty sure my grandfather will love that plan though.

Confession: I once had a near panic attack thinking my engine was stuck. Turns out kids had been horsing around and put it in gear. It was safely chocked. Had me scratching my head for an hour or so until I noticed noise in the drivetrain when I tried to turn at the fan belt. Eureka!

Bartmoses, your idea about gas in the cylinder sounds.....adventurous, but not advisable. Are you serious?

Yes I'm serious, I want someone else to try it. You have to experiment and test ideas. If they make some sense. That is the iffy part. If you are nutty, you can't tell if your ideas are nutty. Could be genius. It's best to let some one else try it so you don't screw up your own stuff. You could put two drops in, and use a remote Piezo made from a spark plug, so you could screw it in. Add a drop at a time until it's just right depending on where each piston is and what valves are open. Just enough to create some heat. OK now it's starting to sound nutty...but that is what brainstorming is all about.

Maybe something that burns slow? Get the heat but not the bang.

On a related note, I did recently unstick a very stuck old lawn boy piston using hydraulic pressure from a grease gun. Made a heck of a mess, but worked better than I thought. Not something I'd recommend for an engine you want to start without disassembling.

Interesting idea, but I don't think I'd try something like that. For one thing, you have no idea where the pistons happen to be, or which way the crankshaft would try to turn. Lighting off a few drops of gas in a cylinder could also bend rods, or maybe even crack a cylinder wall if the piston was not free to move.

I remember one COLD winter day (temp close to zero) when I was trying to start a 1960 Dodge 361 V8 that had stalled on the side of I-40 and had been left to cold-soak overnight. After running one battery down and pouring several ounces of gas down the carburetor we decided we didn't have enough cranking speed. With a little creative jumper cable connecting I hit it with 24 volts. LOTS of cranking speed now! After clearing the flood and getting plenty of spark to the plugs it finally fired- - - - - -all the way through a big hole in one piston and into a crankcase full of gas fumes!

The oil filler cap whizzed past my right ear, close enough to feel the breeze as it went by. We never found it! A 12 gauge shotgun blast would have been quiet by comparison, and both valve covers bulged up like sausage links on a hot grill!
Jerry

Jerry, what about air pressure? it's controllable. That is similar to a leak down test anyway. But air pressure has lots of strength. Won't be much heat generated, but pressure, and forcing penetrant into "rust weld".
261 compression is about 125-140. It's a pretty strong motor.

Gotta have both valves closed tight. There's about a 1 in 6 chance of that happening, and even then a slightly sticky valve would keep pressure from building up in the cylinder. If he has one of the "Cheetah" tubeless tire inflators, it might be possible to hit the cylinder with a quick shot of compressed air with a little creative plumbing, but that's not something most guys have around a farm shop.

http://www.northerntool.com/images/product/400x400/121/121488_400x400.jpg

One possibility would be to fill a cylinder with oil, remove the pushrods or at least back off the valve adjustments, and use one of the Porto-Power jack power units to pressurize the cylinder. Even then, it would be a crapshoot to pick which piston was actually stuck.

I've got a 307 V8 in a 59 Burb stashed out behind the barn that hasn't run since the mid-1990's. It's one of those IRWIPI situations. Just for grins, I might try a few of the techniques we've discussed here when I pull the engine, assuming it's stuck (which it probably will be).
Jerry

Dave, keep rockin the motor. Don't tell your Grandfather about any of this.

Beware of uncontrolled explosions in the cylinder. Consensus was that detonation did this.
Something had to give.....

Good luck

IF I did not know for fact that he does not have a computer, I would half suspect him logging on with an alias just to troll me a bit.

So, I pens downed at the end of the end of my work day, put on the dirty clothes, and went out to the truck. Pulled all the plugs, checked 5 times that it was not in gear, and crawled back under with the tire iron. Despite the computer job, I am fairly strong, and have been known to break or bend all kinds of leverage tools. I pulled as hard as I could, nothing, like a rock. Moved to the other side, same. Rinse lather repeat for about 15 minutes. Finally, on one heave, the tip of the pry bar snapped off...... but, was it my imagination, or did the flywheel move 1/32 of an inch? NOw my mind was playing tricks with me, it felt like it was moving fractionally, but it could have been the tip of the pry bar bending, and besides, the whole truck was rocking on the frame. Good thing the flywheel teeth are strong. Another 15-30 minutes of that, and I finally had verifiable movement, a good solid 1/4" for sure. Back and forth, bit by bit, the teeth would move. After an hour, I was rotating more than 180 degrees before it would bind up and I would go back the other way. By the time the sun went down, and my muscles flagged out on me, I had nearly 270 degrees of rotation, no skin on my knuckles, a much shorter tire iron, and pretty good movement in the middle of the arc. I put more MMO in the cylinders, because the Kroil is on order, finger screwed the plugs back in, picked up my tools, and proceeded to drink whiskey with Grandpa. Of course the whole time I was under the truck, he is walking by the slab yelling "fire in the hole!, lets light this baby up" Tomorrow I have to skip mechanicing, so I am hoping the extra day of soaking will net me a full engine turn by Thursday sundown.

Thanks so much for all the help and support. I am all ears for advice on the next proper step, unless it is "fire in the hole" I have a printout of the dead engine tech tip article, so I will pick up where I left off. I already know the electrical works and the starter wants to turn. No idea what the condition of the fuel system is in, I guess that is next.

I just did exactly the same thing with a 1946-vintage 216 that I've had for several years- - - - -no idea how long it sat idle before I got it. It took 3 months of soaking (with Kroil) and prying to get enough of a turn of the flywheel to get all the clutch bolts removed. I've got the bellhousing sold, so I MUST get the flywheel off to reach the bolts hidden behind it. It hasn't quite made a full turn yet, but it's close.

I don't plan to try to start that one- - - -eventually I'll do a full teardown and rebuild. I'm one of those old dinosaurs who believes 216's are useful for something other than boat anchors. I really enjoy scraping Babbit bearings and shimming connecting rods- - - -I'm just weird that way!

BTW- - - -the chisel-shaped end of a shepherd's crook wrecking bar about 3 feet long is just right for getting a good engagement with a flywheel ring gear if you've got room to swing it.
Jerry

1. Got it to turn...good.
2. Put more juice in...good
3. drink whiskey...relaxing
4. Try again after a day soak...good
5. The crisis is over, now you know that eventually, AFTER it rolls around and around by hand, and AFTER the real Kroil soak for two days, you can use the starter and let all that crap blow out the plug holes. Then wash the cylinders with whatever will clean them (not gas). Then I would put two squirts of motor oil in each cylinder and crank it a bunch. Then I would be sure there is new oil in crank case, water in rad and gas in a gas can, sitting on the ground, with a hose attached to the pump inlet, and start it up and watch the temp and oil pressure until it stops smoking and drink more whiskey (in my case Diet Dr.Pepper) to celebrate. Drive it when gas tank and filters are clean. You know not to run it on an old gas tank no matter what, right?

I've got a very good friend who supplies me with what he calls "liquid grits" for celebrating a long day's labors. He learned the process from his grandfather in the northeast Georgia mountains back in the 1940's and early 50's! Smooth and nice- - - -in very small sips!
Jerry

Great thread! Just found this and enjoyed the read with a early cup of coffee. Congratulations all around for sure.

My bet is that with the progress you've just made, it'll be running very soon. Don't take this as advise, but as soon as I had easy 360 deg rotation I'd prime the carb and (with a water hose/fire extinguisher handy) try and fire that sucker up. It's always gratifying to hear one run, even if it's only till the gas that's been pored down the carb is used up.

I too have a stuck engine project (early 70's CJ5 with a 258 6 cylinder) and have plans for a different tacit on freeing it up. My two younger brothers went together and bought a $200 jeep for parts, one wanted the pto winch, the other the windshield and frame and roll bar. That was about 5 years ago.

The engine was stuck when they bought the jeep and since then it's been sitting in the gravel pit next to a shooting bench, totally neglected.

My plan is to drag it to the top of a steep hill in the pit, put it in high gear, pull the plugs and fill the cylinders with coke (a-cola). The theory being acid in the coke will slowly dissolve the rust that's locking things up and one day I'll find the Jeep at the bottom of the hill with coke sprayed all over the underside of the hood.

Also thinking about using a molasses/water solution rather than coke. Just recently discovered the OLD rust removal process of feed supplement molasses/water at about a 1-7 ratio. It works GREAT, truly amazing how well it works.

I'll be sure and share results, just know this has been on my doitnow list for a couple years.

Great, you got movement. Good story line too, enjoying the read.

Shame I quit drank'n the devils juice on a regular basis yrs ago but, I'll enjoy a small celebratory nip of good ole TN sourmash in honor of your success. For medicinal purposes of course LOL

This, is the philosophical approach I want to take. Grandpa wants to drive to town tomorrow. I did drain the fuel tanks, and as far as I know there are no full cans around. We dumped them all in the last project.

Grandpa's gonna do what Grandpa wants to do. That's just how we Grandpas are. When he pulls it with the loader and it fires up he will look at you with that "I told you it would" grin on his face and you will never hear the end of the story. Your challenge is to keep him away from the loader til you are ready to let him pull it. I truly believe with where you are now a slow gentle roll with the plugs out and the truck in 3rd gear would save you a bunch of time. I say it again SLOW ROLL, by hand or the loader at idle in compound low. It would make Grandpa happy and move you farther along to the first drive. That's just my opinion, right or wrong!

I had a philosophical discussion with a mechanic friend one night at the bar. I was telling him about the mismatched sun rotted, pulled this one of the suzuki, steel showing through on that one set of tires we put on a horse trailer. My friend had a more poetic phrase, but it translated to Cowboy ignorance, or maybe a better term was Cowboy confidence. Anyway, his take was that the old timers confidence in the way the world worked, would allow them to drive that trailer full of cattle across the country, with no issues. He or I, knowing that the tires would fail, would not get 5 feet empty before they all blew up. So yeah, my grandfather could have fired the truck up in an afternoon. The second my... aura? got involved, we are on a much longer timetable.

Hey, nobody's got more confidence than a bullheaded "Bull Shipper"- - - - -and I really want one of 'em watching my back if things get a little tense at that bar!
Jerry

Of all the topics that come up on this forum over the years this one is the most fun to read. It's about the application of brute force to precision assemblies.

In my imagination I see ferrous metal parts rusted together, the rust pits and the friction generated when those rough, rusted surfaces are forced to slide past each other. Ouch!

That good old philosophy did work because there was no schedule to meet, you fixed as you went, no traffic, lots of people would stop and help, the old timers had lots of tricks they knew and you eventually made it.

Now: Higher speeds, traffic, robbers, shooters, vandals, unfriendlys, illegals and highway inspectors. You gotta have good reliable equipment now and carry a cell phone and a hog leg. But Patagonia is as close to the old days as you can get out west.

My Great Grandfather, ,Blaine Lewis, who used to own this truck, was the Marshal here for a while, and at another time I think the cattle inspector. I have seen the photos of him with the 6 point silver star. The truck was a cattle hauling rig. I am turning the old metal sideboards into an enclosed garden. Then later in life it was a water truck, and was used at the mine.

Lots of old history around here, and that is not the only truck sitting out in the tall weeds with stories to tell.

I bought a 261 a few years ago to rebuild and thought it was froze up. The bellhousing ended up being full of a mouse nest. The pressure plate and clutch was packed as well. Once I cleaned out most of the nest,it starting turning freely.