Stuck motor update

nhusa

nhusa

Well-known member
The 1931 Town Sedan that my dad put in storage in in 1964 has a stuck motor.
I brought it to my home last year and have been soaking it with MMO since last fall
This weekend I finally had time to work on it

I first removed the starter and tried to use a pry bar on the flywheel without success

Then I decided to remove the head so I could push the on the pistons
Everything went OK until I tried to remove the distributor.
It would not come out even though I removed the locking pin
I finally pried up and it was spring loaded -it would not come out
Next I removed the intake/exhaust and the valve cover and found that the distributor was stuck to the oil pump shaft. After a bit of "persuasion" they came apart
Next I tried to remove the water pump and found that it that was frozen solid.
Since it has a two blade fan I was able to just loosen the radiator instead of removing it to get the water pump out

I then removed all the nuts holding the head in place.
As expected a few of the studs came out with the nuts.

Now comes my problem. - the stud on one of the two head bolts at the
front water inlet came out but on the other side I could only removed the nut.
I have double nutted the stud and can't budge it
I even tried a bit if heat without success
I can get the head to release from the block everywhere except at the front where the long stud is
I am still trying to figure out why anyone would combine the water inlet bolts and head bolts into one but who am I to question the logic of the Ford engineers?

Are there any tricks I can use to the stud out and the head off?
 
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Soak the studs with Kroil or Gibbs then try to pry up on the lip near the water pump. Sometimes the rust on the studs really locks the head in place.
 
Is the long stud the one on the corner or the next one in?

The one on the corner you have to be more careful about.

The usual techniques are

Torque
Vibration
Impact.
Heat

A common method involves double nutting and putting a torque on it with the breaker bar. Then hitting the top directly down with a small ball pein hammer to set up a vibration. Tap-tap-tap quickly.

It is sometimes to advantage to try to tighten the stud/double nut a little first using this technique.

Heat you may use sparingly with all the other techiques. But used a torch to heat the stud only and let things cool off to where you can touch it before attempting to remove.

If you don't mind sacrificing the stud somewhat you can try a large pipe wrench and grab the stud down closer to the bottom. Or one of those stud remover thingies. This may increase your chances of getting an effective torque on it.

You want your lever arm to result in a force which is "parallel" to the side of the block. This so you don't pull the stud out of the block through the side or into the cylinder. Cast iron is VERY strong in compression - not so much in tension. Keep your direction of force using the wrench such that it's resisted by inches of solid iron in compression - not a quarter inch of iron in combined shear/tension.

Failing in all else, it might be time to bite the bullet and cut the stud off at the surface. Then bring it to your favorite machinist and he'll drill out the stud or replace it with a heli-coil (which results in a bolted connection stronger than the original) Or maybe not required?

George Merrill of Merrill Machine Works is over on 108 New Road in Newmarket, NH. He has helped me innumerable times with machine work of a Model A Nature. He's retired now but has kept a bridgeport and a lathe and would probably do the stud for $20.

Good luck. It's nice when you can handle your own problems. But not essential. Say Hi to George if you go that way.

Joe K

EDit: I see the head is being held by one stud. Tom's advice applies to remove the head.
 
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It is the long stud near the corner It is currently double nutted, and soaked with trans fluid/acetone. I have tried tapping with a hammer while pulling on a wrench and wedging the head upwards without success. I don't know if it is stuck in the block or head and I can't rotate the head around the stud because the majority of the other studs are there

It would be a lot easier to deal with the stud if the heard was off

Next I'll try a Blount end with my air chisel on top of the stud while standing on my left foot facing south and closing one eye
 
Good news. - bad news. - I think !

Good news. - I finally got the head off. It took all day. I slowly wedged it up a bit at a time until it cleared all the short studs and then continued to wedge it up as I rotated the head back and forth with liberal amounts of MMO etc the stud was the whole problem!

The bad news - I expected to see rust coated cylinder walls but there was very little - in fact they looked pretty good after sitting for 50 years. I tried the crank and it is still locked up solid so I guess the next step is to hammer on the pistons. - OK I'll use a block of wood (4x4 if it fits) and dead blow hammer

Can someone make me feel better by telling me that the clean cylinder walls are normal for a locked up motor? I am not ready to face a bottom end problem just yet
 

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I would soak the pistons and valve with a lot of Kroil, Gibbs, etc. then with the starter removed try to pry the flywheel back and forth.

I bought a 1950 Studebaker with a locked engine and when I gave up and finally removed the head there was only the slightest speck of rust on the cylinder that had an open exhaust valve.
 
You guys are probably right. It was a bit messy behind the valve cover. I had planned on spraying the area with engine cleaner and blowing it clean with air. I will still do it but I guess the step after that is to remove the front cover and remove the timing gear - unless someone has a better idea.
 
Don't remove the valve cover yet. Try the soak and pry first.
Also you could put the car in 3rd gear and rock it back and forth, but the prying on the flywheel will have more leverage.
 
Tom. The valve cover is already off because I had trouble removing the distributor.
I tried rocking in 3rd gear and prying the flywheel before making the decision to remove the head.

The stuck distributor and junk behind the valve cover suggests that the problem is in the valve train maybe a stuck cam or valve
 
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I agree the valves may be stuck. This method will work to free stuck valves also:
http://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=135888

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD ANYONE HAMMER ON A PISTON. You will break ring lands, crack pistons, damage rods, damage babbit, or worse.
If you believe pistons are stuck, this is the proper procedure:
Put 1/2 inch of Marvel Mystery Oil (MMO) in the cylinders possibly more since you want the piston tops covered completely.
Now you need to muster up lots and lots of patience. This is about physics not brute force.
Allow the MMO to soak in and do its job. Every day go to the engine and take a piece of 2x4 and a hammer and using the 2x4 to soften the hammering, give each piston a thump (this is not what I call hammering and you have wood in there as a cushion).
Walk away until the next day and repeat. You may have to do this for a month, so what. Eventually one day when you thump a piston you will see slight movement. You are winning. Keep at it. Now it is OK to apply some torque on the crank with the hand crank up front. If you apply torque directly to the pulley nut you run the risk of shearing the bolt. You can also apply torque thru the starter hole and pry on the flywheel. You may only move the piston 1/4 inch the first time. So what. Keep soaking and thumping and moving the piston 1/4 inch at a time until you are able to get 360*.
Be sure to keep the piston top well covered with MMO.
I have used this method many times, even on cylinders that had sucked in sea water. The longest time it took me was a month on a '47 Studebaker engine that was seized badly.

Now, you say, suppose two of the pistons are all the way up, how is this gonna work.
Well, those 2 are prolly not your problem, but they could be.
Clean off the top of the block with lacquer thinner. Get modeling clay (NOT Play-Dough) from the hobby shop. Build a dam around the top of the cylinder so that you can still keep the piston top covered with MMO.

Be patient and good luck.
And the dizzies will *always* stick because moisture builds up in there somehow prolly from some coolant leaking by the head gasket. When you put it all back together be sure to load it up with never-seize
 
Do be careful, many times its the valve train that is stuck as well as the pistons.
I usually soak the pistons in acetone and atf. I also soak the whole valve train in this
stuff, valves lifters, spray it in on the valve stems thru the intake and exhaust ports.
spray it around the lifters.
Try to move the valves, if the valves are open you can try to twist them with some
pliers being careful not to damage them.
But make sure the valves are not stuck before trying to turn the motor to get the pistons
moving. I have seen on a couple of occasions where people forced things to unstick
the motor and pulled a lifter boss right out of the motor.
In really bad cases I have zizz wheeled the valve stems and springs out of there.

Good luck,
Keep us posted
 
I would pull the engine from the car. This will eliminate ******/clutch from the equation. It will also allow easier disassembly and cleaning/adjustment.

You can disconnect the connecting rods from the crank (or at least loosen them) and see if the pistons move.
 
I found a Model B motor laying in a yard that was pulled out of a tractor and abandoned. The motor had sat there for many years, and it too was stuck. Once the cylinder head was off, I found all four pistons had galvanically corroded to the cylinder walls. The exposed cylinder walls were clean because they had a glaze coating on them.

I took the rod caps off and hit each piston from below and from their tops until they broke loose. One of the piston cracked and all were salvageable, but they were junk anyhow. All came loose with considerable pounding.
 
Update. I pulled the valve springs off this morning and found 1 valve stuck. After a bit of work I got it free. And made sure all the others were OK. The seats and valve faces look good.

I tried to move the lifters without any success. The Model A Mechanics book vol 1 says that they can be lifted up when working on the cam but I can't get any of them to move One lifter that was in the up position had a what looked like caked sludge on it
I tried to gently rotate a few of them without success. The book makes a big deal out of measuring the valve lash but gives no info about how to adjust them so I am hesitant to be aggressive in twisting.

Also I pulled up the oil pump distributor drive shaft to look at and I am not sure I got on the same gear tooth when I replaced it. The book say nothing about the correct way to align it but I know it has to be important because the tab has to align with the distributor.

I am not very happy with the model A mechanics handbook because it seems to have left a number of things hanging
 
Since the distributor cam can be turned 360 degrees, the position of the oil pump/dist drive gear doesn't matter. That's why it wasn't mentioned in the book.

Do you have adjustable lifters, or the stock lifters with no hex head to adjust?
 
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