Editing Freeing a stuck engine

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Before you get out the sledge hammer and the block of wood and start pounding away, there are a few things to consider. Most importantly:

*How long has it been since the engine was last turned over?
*What condition was the engine left in when last turned over?

==Taking a look at the engine==
Start by removing the air cleaner. While removing the air cleaner, check for moisture or water puddles in the oil bath. The reason that you are looking for moisture is to determine how much water could be within the engine. If snow has blown into the engine compartment, it will melt and puddle out inside the air cleaner, intake manifold, lifter valley, etc, but not necessarily make its way deep into the engine. If the engine has been flooded by means of overland flooding and rising water, then you could also have an accumulation of silt and dirt within the engine. Dirt and water within the engine is the worst kind of engine lock that you can experience.

Pull the dipstick and check for water in the engine oil. If you find water in the oil, try and determine how much there is. Wipe off the dipstick, attach a pool tester strip to the stick with masking tape and carefully dip the stick in. Note: Pool tester strips can usually be found at pool and spa outlets for about a dollar for 50 strips. The different colored bands will help you to measure how much water is in the oil pan, and if it's clean or dirty.

Open the radiator cap and check for coolant. If no coolant is present in the upper tank, open the drain tap and check for the presence of antifreeze. You can remove a upper radiator hose housing and check under the thermostat too. In some cases, you can open at engine block tap or remove a water jacket stud to look for coolant too.

===Understanding water damage===
If the water is from an external source such as rain, and it came into the air cleaner via the butterfly stud on the air cleaner, chances are there is only a small quantity in only a few of the engine bores. You can only have so many intake valves open at one time, and the water would have only migrated into those cylinder bores. Therefore, you could only have two or three stuck pistons at best, and not all of them. In such a case, the likelihood of freeing the engine is much better. On the other hand, if the engine had been flooded by rising flood waters, there is a chance that besides intake valves being open, the exhaust valves open  too. To make matters worse, water also entered in the oil breather and is present in the oil pan. Flood waters also have a large presence of clay particles (or silt), chemicals of unknown nature, and varying acidity and alkalinity.

===Flood water damage===
The clay or silt particles present in flood water will puddle out deep inside of the engine and hang on to the rough casting surfaces of all the internal workings. These clay particles are so small that when they are in solution they will infiltrate a bearing. When the water dries, they will form a layer of dust within the bearing. The dust will wick up the oil from the surface and water vapor from the air will start to [[rust]] the steel surface over time. The dust will also have acids and alkalines (caustics) attached to it, and together with water vapor will etch the bearing surfaces.

After a flood, priorities arise. Newer, essential and operational vehicles take priority, others will have to wait. The flooded engines will just have to wait, sometimes after freeze-up, sometimes even longer. Internal damage and cracked blocks and heads are usually the result of frozen water. Sometimes they will end up being junked for the cast iron.

==Understanding and preparation==
What you discovered above will lead you to understanding the solution to unsticking the engine. An engine that was in a covered shed, had no visible sign of water infiltration, and was full of oil and coolant but stuck, is usually an easy fix. The rings which are cast iron are stuck to the cast cylinder walls but only in the cylinders which are open to the atmosphere. If you followed the firing order of the engine, you could determine which are open cylinders and which are closed. You can start by pulling the spark plugs out to relieve any compression in the cylinders. Put some diesel fuel into each cylinder with a trigger type oil can. Use a least an ounce in each hole and allow to sit for a few hours. While that's working, back off on the fan belts, remove the air cleaner and valve covers. Charge up the battery, clean the cables and make sure all electrical connections are tight. Remove the fan shroud if there is one. Get a 3-foot breaker bar with a 3/4" drive and the appropriate socket for the front pulley bolt. Remove the coil wire from the distributor/coil. Find two friends and explain what you are about to do and what each one has to look for or do.

==Breaking the engine loose==
With the spark plugs out of the engine and a FULLY charged battery, give the starter a one second click and then stop. Observe as you do this if the fan or crank pulley has moved slightly and which way it moved, if the valves have moved, and if the starter is fully engaging into the flywheel. Take the breaker bar and turn the crank pulley back a nudge and then hit the starter button again to put some torque on the flywheel. This torque multiplication will move the crank journal a degree or two and will push or pull on the piston which in turn will apply thrust against the rings. All you have to do for the moment is crack the rings loose a thousandth of an inch to allow the diesel fuel to get in to that cavity. After allowing the diesel to settle in for a few minutes, use the breaker bar to remove the tension on the ring. The diesel fuel between the ring and the wall will act as a fulcrum and break the ring free from the cylinder wall. It may take a dozen or so tries before all of the stuck rings and bearing are free but with each successive try more fluid will fill the voids until the engine is free to turn. Allow the engine to make two or three revolutions before stopping the exercise. This will allow the excess diesel fuel to evacuate itself from the combustion chambers and for some of the oil in the crankcase to move in the system. The engine will now have a new place to rest while the lubrication seeps into the surfaces of the internals.

You can also use Marvel Mystery Oil (comes in red bottles) for this, PB blaster/WD-40 is good and Kerosene works as well.  Unless the engine us super-stuck, DO NOT use gasoline or a solvent like product unless absolutely necessary, as they do not provide any lubricity.

==After the engine has broken loose==
Now that you have broken the engine loose, one of the first things to do is change the oil. This will get rid of most of the dirt, acids, and excess diesel fuel. Pull the plug, remove the filter and let it drain for a day or two. Then, add a gallon or so of diesel fuel and a new filter, and turn it over with the starter for a minute or so. You'll be turning it over without spark plugs, so watch for spray coming out of the plug holes. It will turn much faster and build up some oil pressure while cleaning out the oil galleys and internals. You can cycle through a few times if you want.

You now have to make a choice: run the engine as is, or pull the heads and pan to check for damages. If you're going to do a compression test or a leakdown test, drain and re-fill with new oil. Circulate the new oil throughout the oil galleries by cranking the engine 50 crankshaft revolutions to purge the diesel fuel, and then start the engine to warm it up and burn off some of the diesel fuel in the engine. In most cases you should go the overhaul route, checking for wear, mic'ing out the bores and clearances of bearings, etc.

==Unsticking the impossible==
The basics of unsticking any engine are the same. Fill it up with a fluid that will penetrate and lubricate any surface. Remove or loosen any accessory or engine part that is not relative to making the engine turn or cause stress. ROCK THE ENGINE, a degree of turning or a thousandths of an inch is a start in moving the engine's reciprocating mass. Allow for TIME and don't get impatient.

Finding a fluid that will penetrate and lubricate is the key. You need something that will creep, stay wet, and wick its way up into the most awkward and obtrusive spot. Ordinary motor oil will coat but creeps at a very slow pace. Petroleum or mineral spirits will get into small places but will dry out over time. Paraffin will wick its way up or down a threaded bolt when it is at the correct temperature. Acids will 'burn' their way and may be hard to control. Caustics are more of a slow burn and will require an outside energy source to work better. Water will penetrate, wet and coat but has limitations. Diesel fuel, is a middle-of-the-road fluid that will creep, coat and stay wet over time. If you're feeling adventurous, you can mix up your own solution (WD40 did).

Know what metal that you are working with and apply the correct solution to get the best result. We know that steel or iron will rust, but how do we penetrate that [[rust]]? Aluminum will form a white powdery residue and turn a dark grey almost black coating, what is that? Brass and copper will be covered with a green cakey substance, how do we remove that? Most metals will form what is known as an oxide, where oxygen from the air mixes on the surface with the base metal. We do know that when these oxides dry out they are usually hard to wet and to remove.

Why not just re-wet the piece of metal with the same thing that caused it to fail! If water cause a piece of steel to rust, why not use water to re-wet it and remove the rust; i.e. waterjet. 

Heat is an excellent tool for unsticking things, but only when used in moderation. If you heated up water to 180 to 200 degrees and poured it in an engine block, what would happen? Would the block expand? If you used a large rosebud flame torch and applied it to the cast iron block, what would happen? Probably crack, most would say. If you applied both hot water and the torch to the same motor block with moderation, what would be the result? What would stay hotter longer: water or oil? 

Would hitting a stuck piston help it to move? The answer is, yes and no. If you apply enough force in the proper direction, yes it would help. If you just wound up and smacked it dead center with a ball peen hammer, you would probably just put a hole in it and it would still remain stuck. The better way to approach this when you have a stuck engine would be this way:

#Determine what is stuck? The piston(s), the crank, the cam and valve train, the rods, etc?
#Break the engine down until you find that part or combination of parts.
#It would be a hell of a waste if we just gave up on an engine just because it wouldn't turn over. How about turning it back? Could we have just dropped a valve on the piston and its just stuck there. 
#Remove non-essential accessories that aren't required to make the engine rotate. That means that you can loosen the belts off or remove the alternator, water pump, intakes and exhaust manifolds, distributors, heads, oil pans, etc. Get it down to where you can have a good look around and see where the problem area lays.
#Keep the engine in a secure holding device. If it's the frame of the car or truck, that's good, but make sure that the motor mounts aren't going to rip off if we apply some torsional turning devices to the engine,i.e. 6 foot steel track bar. If the engine is loose, find a way to hold it down. Remember, the tensile strength of steel is greater than wood. And if one bolt is good, a half a dozen would be better.
#Flood the engine block with the fluid of your choice. Turn it upside down and fill the block, and plug holes as necessary. This is just a pre-lube stage.
#Using an oak block and a dead blow hammer of your choice, SHOCK  each piston with a few blows. Any piston which is the TDC or BDC position will not give you any mechanical advantage in rotating the assembly by hitting it. The initial strike is to just loosen the rings in the piston lands and break the rings free from the walls of the cylinder. Pistons that are in between TDC and BDC will provide the best opportunity to move within the bore. 
#There are two places in which you can apply rotational force. One is the crank pulley and the other is the flywheel. If the engine is in the frame of the vehicle, use the crank pulley. If it's out of the vehicle, use the flywheel. Iron pulleys and balancers will take more abuse than steel pulleys. Crank keys and keyways can shear with abnormal force. Be sure of the bolt grades before applying force. Remember there are two ways to turn an engine, use both of them (CW and CCW).
#Don't forget to use horizontal force on the crankshaft. Tap the crankshaft at both ends with your dead blow hammer and oak block. Loosen off the rod bearings and tap with a bronze hammer to break the shell bearings loose.
#After you've done all of the above, let 'er soak and then start over again. She'll loosen!

===Miscellaneous===
After trying the aforementioned soaking to no avail, determine which cylinder is on the compression stroke by removing the spark plugs and using a compression gauge hose or other hose that fits snugly in the spark plug hole. Blow in the hose, if you can't easily then you have the one on compression stroke (if you use a gauge hose make sure it has no schrader valve in it). Break the porcelain out of an old spark plug and thread the metal body for a large grease fitting (1/4 NPT). Insert the plug in the compression cylinder and pump it full using a grease gun filled with cheap light weight grease (like white grease). Grease guns can develop thousands of pounds of pressure with no impact. Once the motor breaks free you can rotate the motor to squeeze most of the grease out of the spark plug hole.

Another approach is to put an Oz. of WD40 or PB Blaster in each cylinder and then pressurize with compressed air. On cylinders that are not under compression, the compressed air will distrubute the penertrating oil. With the cylinder under compression, the compressed air will act to rotate the engine while driving the penertrating oil past the rings.

I tried all of the above and was about to give up when a "old timer" told me about using Coke a Cola, I didn't believe it but  why not try it. I poured a can of straight red can Coke in each spark plug hole. Let sit overnight. Next day I pulled on the breaker bar and with hardly any pressure it rotated free and easy. Ever see what coke does to a penny soaked over night?

==Unsticking an engine in a manual transmission vehicle==
Success can be attained in unsticking an engine in vehicles equipped with a manual transmission on a number of occasions by using the pre-soaking methods mentioned above for a long period.

Once the engine has soaked, jack up one drive wheel, put the transmission in high gear and work the wheel back and forth.

If you have a friend to help you can skip jacking up the wheel, put the vehicle in high gear, position yourselves on each end of the vehicle and rock the vehicle back and forth. This can take quite a while and it is quite tiring but you will notice the wheel will start to move a little farther if the process is going to succeed.

Once the drive wheel rotates several revolutions, pull the vehicle in high gear several miles with all the plugs removed. This is probably not necessary but it gets everything well-lubricated.

[[Category:Garage and shop]]
[[Category:Good articles]]
[[Category:Engine]]