<VV> Problems with a 140 tear down

[RoboMan91324 at aol.com]

Bob,
 
A few years ago, I bought a complete 180 engine from a VV'er  in the 
Chicago area.  He told me that the engine turned freely.   Nothing could have been 
further from the truth.  In my decades of  experience, I have never seen an 
engine more solidly seized.  I won't take  the time to explain all of the 
things that were wrong with this engine contrary  to the seller's description 
but will keep my story to just the dismantling of  the engine.  I will tell 
you what I tried initially just in case it might  work for you and will 
tell you what finally worked.
 
First, I tried to turn the crankshaft with everything intact  including the 
heads.  Nothing moved.  
 
Second, I took everything off of the engine down to what would  be 
described as the "short block."  What remained were the cases, crank and  cam 
shafts, pistons, cylinders, con rods and caps.
 
Third,  I mounted the engine on an  engine stand to make everything more 
convenient.  I turned the engine  sideways so the cylinders were facing up and 
down.  I used PB Blaster and  other products that had been recommended here 
on VV.  I squirted the stuff  into the combustion chambers which faced up 
as well as into the bottom of the  pistons on the other side of the engine 
that were facing down.  My thought  was to attack top and bottom rings as well 
as the wrist pins at the same  time.  Also, with the pistons facing 
directly up and down, this assured  that the Blaster would contact the rings all 
the way around the cylinder.   I have always felt that if the piston/cylinder 
was in the normal horizontal  position, contact of the Blaster with the 
rings would only be partial.  You  can't trust capillary action to draw the 
solvent to all parts of the  rings.
 
Every day I would apply more Blaster and every few days I  would turn the 
engine 180 degrees on the stand so the trio of cylinders facing  up and down 
were reversed and I would apply more Blaster or other product as  described 
above.  Each time, I would give the tops of the pistons a  good smack or two 
or three with a hammer.  I would use a piece of steel as  an extension for 
those pistons which were too far down in the cylinders to reach  with the 
hammer alone.  Obviously, with pistons so firmly seized, I assumed  the 
pistons were worthless even if I wanted to reuse old pistons so I didn't  care 
about dents in the pistons.  I tried this for weeks without  success.
 
Fourth,  I tried to unbolt the connecting rod caps so I  could try to pull 
the connecting rod, piston and cylinder from the engine as  assemblies.  
Because I couldn't turn the crank, I couldn't get to all of  the cap nuts with 
traditional tools.  I spent an obscene amount of time  trying to do this and 
even ground down some sockets to try to get them to fit  awkward positions. 
 This helped and I eventually got all the nuts  off.  I even tried a 
nutcracker.  I removed four of the  rod/piston/cylinder assemblies by tapping the 
cylinders with a dead blow hammer  while pulling away from the crankcase.  
With a couple of these assemblies  removed, I had easier access to a few more 
cap nuts through the now  empty cylinder holes in the cases.  I was stuck 
on the last two  assemblies because the crankshaft's rod journals were seized 
in exactly the  worst position.  The journal side of the rod was too close 
to the crankcase  to pull the rod/piston/cylinder assemblies out.  The rod 
cap bolts couldn't  be removed because they were also too close to the 
crankcase to slide out of  their holes.  I couldn't pull the case halves apart 
because the rods were  at an angle that caused interference with the crank 
journals.  Because I  couldn't remove the cap bolts, I couldn't tap the con rods 
to break the wrist  pin seizure.  I did not want to damage the crank 
journals with the con rod  bolts or edge of the con rod.  Be careful with the 
crank if you think all  it needs is a polish.  To get the last assemblies out, I 
had to use a  pneumatic cut-off tool to cut through the remaining con rod 
bolts.  With  those out of the way, I was able to remove the last of the  
assemblies.
 
Fifth, I pressed the pistons out of the cylinders with a  hydraulic press.  
I felt I was beginning to over stress the press but the  pistons finally 
let go with a "crack" that sounded like a small caliber  gun.  The first one 
scared the poop out of me so be prepared.   Fortunately, the cylinders were 
salvageable.  I sent them to one of our  valued vendors for exchange.
 
Lessons learned:
 
First, I was not pressed for time but even so, I wasted plenty  of it with 
the benign methods described.  If those efforts don't work in a  reasonable 
time, go to more drastic methods sooner than I did.  With 20:20  hindsight, 
perhaps I should have even considered cutting the con rods themselves  if 
there was no risk to the cases or crankshaft.  Think about the value of  the 
time wasted vs. the value of new rods.
 
Second, be careful of who you deal with even here on VV.   There were 
several chapters in my horror story with the seller other than the  terribly 
seized engine he claimed to be "free turning."  The person I dealt  with was in 
the Chicago area and I am on the west coast.  We never met  face-to-face.  
This man was on VV for a few months before our transaction  started and 
remained here for a few months after I finally received the  engine.  To my 
knowledge, he left VV unless he remains a lurker.   Don't get me wrong, I would 
happily deal with most of the people on VV even  sight-unseen but I am now 
leery of "short timers" that I cannot meet  face-to-face first.  At least that 
is the case with high dollar  items.
 
Good luck Bob
 
Doc
 
1960 Corvette, 1961 Rampside, 1962 Rampside, 1964 Spyder  coupe, 1965 
Greenbrier, 1966 Canadian Corsa turbo coupe, 1967 Nova SS, 1968  Camaro ragtop

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
In a message dated 8/30/2011 7:30:30 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

Message:  5
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:51:17 -0700
From: "Bob Gilbert"  <bgilbert at gilberts-bc.ca>
Subject: <VV> Problems with a 140  tear down
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Message-ID:  <018c01cc6780$794c2550$6be46ff0$@gilberts-bc.ca>
Content-Type:  text/plain;    charset="us-ascii"

Hi,

I'm in the  process of tearing down a 140 block as a pre-cursor to starting 
the 3.1 build  for my UltraVan. The block and everything inside and outside 
were very, very  rusty. Other than making it a tougher job to tear down , I 
didn't worry too  much about the rust as most of what is rusty will be 
replaced or otherwise  worked on.

Until now!

I've removed the heads and I am down to  the bare crankcase and cylinders 
with pistons in them. The bell housing is  still attached and is mounted to 
my engine stand.

The problem is the  crank won't move (possibly even rusted by itself)  and 
the pistons are  rust-welded to the cylinders! So I can't even get to the 
all of the con rod  bolts off and split the case.

Any ideas? (besides  dynamite!)

Thanks,

Bob