I'm amazed at what some of you guys can do to old cars you pull out of fields or dig out of the mud. The skill it takes to patch those up and turn them into great cars blows me away. Wondering if anyone's got a great story on an engine that should have been turned into a boat anchor, but you got it running. Not looking for your run of the mill "hasn't run in 30 years" engines. I mean the total seized, rusted out, rats living in the cylinder type of engines. Maybe some good before, during & after shots & stories. I don't know if this has been done yet...tried a search, but didn't find anything.
Closest to your description would be the 1957 Pontiac I found in a barnyard. Been sitting for many years without running and not carb or water pump on it when I pulled it out of the corral. Figured I'd have to rebuild the mill for sure, but when I pulled the intake and heads off, it looked like a fresh rebuild already. Couldn't believe critters and so forth hadn't made it a barnyard condo, so I put a fresh set of gaskets on and drove it for years without a problem. Many is the car I pulled out of fields to run in demo derby's that had been sitting for many years that took nothing more than a fresh set of plugs and gas. Rarely found nesting except in tail pipes which were coming off anyway. Fired one up with the exhaust still on and the mouse bedding acted like a shotgun wad and darn near put a big walnut straight through my garage door............... Pulled a 55 Olds out from under the claw of the nearby shredder to rebuild. Someone had dropped a later Olds 394 in it with some chrome dress up goodies. Found out one of the reasons they sent it down when I got it to fire. The mill sounded like the shredder it was headed for. It actually ran, (sorta). But half a dozen push rods were bent. several looked like brake adjustment tools. The top of one piston was mostly gone from the valve faces that blew through it. So there was a bunch of metal in the pan, but nothing caught it to lock it up. Amazed it ran at all, but I was able to find a good replacement 394 instead of saving that one. Yep, I had 1 boat anchor..........
'41 dodge pickup, high water mark across the top of the dash from a flood a year before. put oil, wd40, pb,and tranny fluid in the spark plug holes and tried to spin the engine everyday for two weeks i finally put it on the lift and crow bared the flywheel till it turned. once it made a full revolution we pulled the head did a valve job, dropped the pan and pulled the pistons loosened and cleaned the rings ,reassembled the engine and fired it up. still running after 9 years with no smoke
1928 Essex, sitting for 20 years under a porch. It was still 'free', so a little GM ring loosener and a basic tune and it ran. Electric fuel pump even worked. Or, 1965 Ducati Monza Jr, fell over under my porch, left for two years that way. Friend had a garage sale, so I brought it over. I got bored, threw some gas in it, and it started. Buddy spent the next 4 hours trying to start a Honda 500 that he had sitting in the shed - no go on that one. Cosmo
Built a 235 Stovebolt for my cousin to put in his 55 Chevy truck, When we pulled the valave cover there was a mouse living in amongst the rocker shaft,When we got the head pulled we ended up having to knock the pistons out with a block of wood and a sledgehammer. At one point we had the engine in three diferent locations,Some parts at the machine shop,Some at my cousin's house and some in my garage. It has now been running like a top for the last 15 years.
I had a buddy that bought a OT Chev P/U with a 292 in it. It was totally seized when we pulled it into the shop. We pulled the head and found water and tons of rust in every bore. 5 pistons came out nice with a hammer and a 2x4. The pistons were stamped 120, my buddy didn't believe they were .120" over until we measured them The last piston was really stuck. We got a wood fence post and a BFH and beat on it until the piston crown shattered. He "honed" the rust pits out of it, bought 1 piston and a set of rings and ran it for 3 years and ~40K miles. It sounded like a sewing machine when cold b/c it had such terrible piston slap, but it ran and didn't burn oil. I thought he should find a new mill.
The Pontiac 400 I rebuilt was just about everything you've mentioned; totally seized and mice living in the cylinder. I haven't ran it in awhile. so it's probably back to being what it was...
I got a Brut snowmobile with a stuck engine. Poured in some marvel Mystery oil. Every once in a while I would check to see if it was free. After a couple years it broke loose so I cleaned the carbs and got it fired up. I ran the stink out of it for about 250 miles, then sold it.
Dan, you might appreciate this engine story. Back around 81-82 I found a 1954 331 Hemi sitting in the middle of someones front yard, asked about it, and $25 dollars later it was mine. The engine had sat for so long that it had sunk into the mud about pan deep. I finally got it out of the mud and into my truck and then off to the carwash for a exterior wash. I took it home, dumped plenty of whatever lube I had at the time into the holes, and it actually turned with a breaker bar on the crank bolt. I parked the engine under cover with others that I had collected. A couple years later I sold it to a local guy as a core, with the full explanation. Within a week he called to tell me he fired it up and it ran great...
okay...not the worst boat anchor....but the most dead possums.... in 1971 couldn't buy it for my HS ride...but did in 2008 after he had died.... there were three mumified possums under all the leaves around the engine and two under it we found when we moved it...look close at one pic and you can see one...after much Marvell and bump turning it with the plugs in I had i fired up and running....sold it at Pate 2009...
VEGA. Heard all the horror stories. It started using a lot of oil so I did the valve guides. Quit burning oil but was still leaking out the rear main. And it blew black smoke and wouldn't idle for shit. So I tore it down. scraped the ledges out of th aluminum cylinders and honed them, just like all the books said you can't do. threw some stock size rings on the original pistons and bolted it back together. Still smoked and idled for shit. Then I started thinking it acted like a sunk float... New float fixed it. Don't believe all the "horror stories" about any engine! I found out that a Vega will leak a quart of oil out the rear main once it starts leaking. I also learned it had a windage tray and scoops on the connecting rods like the old babbit pounder Chevys 60 years ago that splash oiled the cylinders, unless it was a quart low on oil, and then it just ran dry. Fucking built in termination. And then there was the windshield rain drain holes glued shut where they shouldn't have been, (filled with glue) from the factory so the cowl rusted out and the ignition main RED hot wire pulled out of the loom and clamped between the steering column support yoke and dash frame so it would eventually rub through and short out. The fucking car was sabotaged at the factory!!!!!!! It was fun to drive though with the four speed...
bought a 53 Stude Loewy coupe with a swapped in Packard 352 - had Thomas Magnesium rocker arms with about four or five broken. we cut and welded some Chev six arms (shaft size was same, but geometry was a bit off. Realize this isn't the worst-case story we're going to see on this thread, but it's the one I recall. dj
Bought a '69 Ford P.U. for the interior parts it had a free 302 in it . It took a whole afternoon of rolling it over to get the rings to get some compression. Finally when we were about to give up it popped and ran probably after 10 years of sitting at a friends place. We pulled it and put it in a '64 Falcon beater and it ran like a top till it was sold 2 years later. Rob.
The engine in the Willys,my avatar.Sat for many years,it had a temporary fuel feed using a Pespi Bottle and hose with fuel that had long turned to varnish.Bones uner the seat meant zombies probably owned it before me. Messed around and got the engine going, ran on three cylinders.No compression in one cylinder.I went to restart the engine,had the throttle zammed open for the compression test,forgot about it,engine raced wide open on start up.No big deal except yanking off the jumper wire from battery to coil took about 10 seconds.I started it up after clearing the throttle and the engine ran smooth on all four cylinders.My wife drove it daily all last summer but by the end it was blowing smoke out the breather tube and exhaust. The engine is now rebuilt.
The one that comes to mind was a car brought to my grandfather, likely prewar. It ran but had a skip. On teardown. He found that someone made a single wooden piston and installed it in place of a broken one. It probably worked well enough to sell the car. He should have kept the wooden piston as a paper weight keepsake. Vintageride
1958 Mercury ParkLane coupe, 430 CI. I had been trying to buy this car where it sat on the side of a house near Reno, NV. since about 1983. Was always told "we're going to restore it, it was GrandPa's car" Finally in the early nineties I drove by and the car was gone. Didn't give it much thought until I was at a storage facility auction, and the Merc was parked nearby, but not part of the sale. I left a business card on the front seat, and the owner actually called me a week later, and agreed to sell the car. The grandchildren had tried to get the car running many years ago, and left all the spark plugs out. Field mice moved into the engine compartment and built nests, using the spark plug holes as toilets. I poured a mix of ATF and diesel into the cylinders, and let it set for a week or two. No dice, frozen solid. I removed the starter, and using the edge of the bellhousing as a fulcrum, leveraged a long bar into the ring gear teeth. It still would not budge. Next, I pulled the pan and removed individual rod caps to determine which cylinders were locked. There were two that would not budge at all. Using a steel bar, I was able to finally beat the pistons in those cylinders to the top of their bores, and with a 1/2 inch drive extension bar through the spark plug holes [remember the MEL engines have the combustion chamber in the block, not the heads], I knocked the pistons back far enough to reattach and torque the rod caps back on.Luckily these pistons were tough, the extension could have easily gone through the piston crowns. Now, it was back to trying to rotate the crank. With the long bar into the ring gear teeth, it would now turn, although with a lot of applied force. Finally, I got an entire revolution, and went through the process again, and again. It definitely turned easier now. I bolted the pan back on, attached the starter, and cranked with the battery. It cranked slowly and would not even try to start. I checked compression, and most cylinders read just 60 Lbs, the best was 90 PSI. I made sure there was plenty of spark, and hooked an external gas can to the inlet of the fuel pump. I hooked two batteries in series to boost the voltage to 24 volts, and gave the starter a spin. This time it cranked the engine over quite a bit faster, and finally fired up and ran. Poorly, but it ran. It also filled the shop full of smoke from the oil in the cylinders. I let it run until it was plenty hot, with no water in the radiator, and shut the ignition off. Then i poured a small amount of ATF mixed with brake fluid down the carb while cranking, and shut it off. I let the engine cool back down to room temperature, and this time cranked with 12 volts. She fired right up this time, and after the exhaust cleared, did not smoke any longer. I drove this car for the next year until a fellow from Sweden just had to have her, and I sent her down the road. ---John
Its not Auto related, or even traditional..so I dont know if it counts. But i got an old Onan Huge 2 Cyl. engine running that had sat for so long no one knew when it was put up for done. I really didnt disect it much, rebuilt the carb, cleaned out a huge hornets nest (it was air cooled)..freed up all the rotating and reciprocating mechanicals..changed out the wires and switches, and the fluids and hoses for fuel. after about 4 days of tinkering with it, it ran pretty dam good.. and kept running for 4 years after. It was on a huge generator, I just gave it away a year ago..and its still running last i heard It was a nasty POS, but I got it going again
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