Any suggestions to get this engine to turn? Won't turn with hand crank, didi the marvel mystery oil routine, and still won't. Any other secrets out there I should try before tearing it apart?
Dump some diesel or kerosene mixes with wd40 into the cylinders and let it set for a week. I've got a couple motors unstuck that way. Bill
Did you put a jack under the hand crank? Marvel with a jack applying a constant bit of pressure and left to sit will usually will budge it.
I know this sounds crazy but we use water! Way we look at is water stuck water will unstick it. We have done this on several tractors and A motors and have had good luck. Also SylaKroil works awesome.
Do a search on the forum. There's been quite a few of these threads, but I still learn something new from each one! Jay
Kroil has unstuck several Model A engines for me, fast! In a few days. Those engines are fairly loose anyway. Works much faster if you remove the heads and pour it in each cylinder instead of thru the spark plug hole. I bought my Kroil on Ebay because I couldn't find it in stores.
Friend of mine uses a 2x4 on a piston top and a breaker bar on the crank. Gotta have the head off, put enough oil on the piston tops that it can start its way to the rings, put some pressure on the crank with the breaker bar (a basic 3/8 or 1/2 inch drive will work just as well), not too much though, tap the piston with the 2x4 end and she should break free. Dont beat it, shouldn't need to. The one I saw just took one light tap and she was unstuck. Sounded crazy to me the first time I heard it, but it's worked half a dozen times for him. Ford Bangers are pretty resilient.
A couple of years ago, I was asked to free up a Model A four banger that had been sitting for over 15 years. I did the MMO thing with a jack putting pressure on a crank handle. After several weeks nothing happened. I then added diesel fuel and MMO to each cylinder. Then I hooked up a new battery. I would step on the starter button and let it bang on the flywheel ring gear several times. About every other day, I'd stop by and do it again. After about a week, it started to turn. Then all at once it spun over and over. The diesel/MMO shot out of the cylinders and hit the ceiling of the garage. A few days later I had the engine running like it was new. It did smoke like crazy for an hour, but once all of the fuel oil had burned out of the exhaust system, it was fine. This car was also a '29.
Filling the cylinders with brake fluid has worked for me. DOT 3 is a nasty solvent. It's an unconventional approach, but that stuff will drain down in a day or two. It seems to dissolve the rust and corrosion into a brown sludge.
I had an uncle buy a tractor once that the motor in it was stuck solid. I helped him load it onto a trailer, and the way he unstuck it was he didn't tie it down on the trailer! He basically made a chain 'loop' around the front of the weight bar on the tractor, and then took off down the road with the tractor in gear. After about 3 hours of driving in stop and go traffic, the motor was freed up. He stuck a battery in it, primed all the fuel lines, and then fired it right up! Now, I don't advocate driving down the road with a basically unsecured load, but hell... it worked!
Pour some Coca-Cola (or any cola) down the spark plug holes into the cylinders. The cola will eat the corrosion right quick. A freind of mine spent a month trying every trick he could find to free up an old De Soto Hemi. He had the motor turning about 15 minutes after pouring Coke down the cylinders.
What about vineger? There have been many posts here on useing vineger to remove rust on parts, why wouldn't it work to remove rust in a cylinder and free a stuck piston? Brian
The Jalopy Journal
