About a month ago, I dragged home a VERY rusty '61 Lark 2 door sedan. The body, save for a very few usable parts, has gone to its reward. I left the engine sitting on the frame for the time being. It was stuck.
A couple of days ago, I decided it was time to see if I could get it un-stuck. I removed the crab manifold, complete with water pump, and removed the pulley and front crank bolt. I used a pair of holes in the pulley as a guide, and drilled a pair of holes near the end of a 4-foot piece of angle iron. Bolted this device to a pair of the pulley studs, and I now had a handy handle with which to turn the engine. I reefed on it, to and fro, for some time, with no action.
So I pulled the heads off. Very little rust in the cylinders, and a small ridge, not as bad as many I've seen. Number 7 seemed to be the stuck one. I soaked the cylinders all with PB Blaster, and called it a night. That was yesterday. Today I found an old 259 piston and rod, which had been in the trunk of the '61, curiously enough. The rod was rusted solid to the wrist pin. I inserted this piston head first into #7 cylinder, so it was flat against the top of #7 piston, and gave the end of the connecting rod a few whacks with a 2-pound hammer. Then I tugged to and fro on my angle iron lever, and gave it a few more whacks. Success! The engine broke free. I turned it clockwise until my lever hit an obstruction (the fuel pump), took the lever off its pair of studs, and moved it to another pair, and turned it some more. Used my putty knife to clean all the carbon off the piston tops.
Then I cleaned up the heads. There were 5 stuck valves (all exhaust, too), and I freed them up up with PB Blaster on the stems and a little hammer massaging. Then I cleaned the heads, and all that I could reach of the block with various scrapers and solvent, and sprayed them with silver rust paint from a rattle can. I cleaned all the encrusted gasket goo off the steel shim head gaskets with rotary wire brush and a scraper, and coated them with copper-filled gasket spray, and re-used them. No point in "wasting" new gaskets on an engine that may well have to be torn down before it is put to use.
Got the heads on, and torqued down, and even got the heat riser valve freed up. I connected a battery to the starter, and it spun over, not fast, but smoothly.
Next tasks include clean and paint intake manifold and crab manifold, breather stack and oil filter, and valve covers. I'll set all the valves to .025" cold, and see if I can make it run at all. If it fires up, then I'll hang a radiator on it, and let it run until warmed up, and check oil pressure, and then do an oil change.
I don't have an immediate use for this engine, but if it becomes a runner, it will go into dry storage for future reference. I never painted the oil pan or the undersides of the cylinder banks, but that can be much more easily done once the engine is hoisted out of the chassis. And if this engine does prove to be in need of an overhaul, at least a big chunk of the necessary cleaning is behind me. I was on it for about 15 hours between yesterday and today. Here's how it looked as I quit this evening:
Gord Richmond, within Weasel range of the Alberta Badlands
A couple of days ago, I decided it was time to see if I could get it un-stuck. I removed the crab manifold, complete with water pump, and removed the pulley and front crank bolt. I used a pair of holes in the pulley as a guide, and drilled a pair of holes near the end of a 4-foot piece of angle iron. Bolted this device to a pair of the pulley studs, and I now had a handy handle with which to turn the engine. I reefed on it, to and fro, for some time, with no action.
So I pulled the heads off. Very little rust in the cylinders, and a small ridge, not as bad as many I've seen. Number 7 seemed to be the stuck one. I soaked the cylinders all with PB Blaster, and called it a night. That was yesterday. Today I found an old 259 piston and rod, which had been in the trunk of the '61, curiously enough. The rod was rusted solid to the wrist pin. I inserted this piston head first into #7 cylinder, so it was flat against the top of #7 piston, and gave the end of the connecting rod a few whacks with a 2-pound hammer. Then I tugged to and fro on my angle iron lever, and gave it a few more whacks. Success! The engine broke free. I turned it clockwise until my lever hit an obstruction (the fuel pump), took the lever off its pair of studs, and moved it to another pair, and turned it some more. Used my putty knife to clean all the carbon off the piston tops.
Then I cleaned up the heads. There were 5 stuck valves (all exhaust, too), and I freed them up up with PB Blaster on the stems and a little hammer massaging. Then I cleaned the heads, and all that I could reach of the block with various scrapers and solvent, and sprayed them with silver rust paint from a rattle can. I cleaned all the encrusted gasket goo off the steel shim head gaskets with rotary wire brush and a scraper, and coated them with copper-filled gasket spray, and re-used them. No point in "wasting" new gaskets on an engine that may well have to be torn down before it is put to use.
Got the heads on, and torqued down, and even got the heat riser valve freed up. I connected a battery to the starter, and it spun over, not fast, but smoothly.
Next tasks include clean and paint intake manifold and crab manifold, breather stack and oil filter, and valve covers. I'll set all the valves to .025" cold, and see if I can make it run at all. If it fires up, then I'll hang a radiator on it, and let it run until warmed up, and check oil pressure, and then do an oil change.
I don't have an immediate use for this engine, but if it becomes a runner, it will go into dry storage for future reference. I never painted the oil pan or the undersides of the cylinder banks, but that can be much more easily done once the engine is hoisted out of the chassis. And if this engine does prove to be in need of an overhaul, at least a big chunk of the necessary cleaning is behind me. I was on it for about 15 hours between yesterday and today. Here's how it looked as I quit this evening:
Gord Richmond, within Weasel range of the Alberta Badlands
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