<VV> Problems with a 140 tear down

[Bob Gilbert]

Hi Doc,

 

Thanks - great story and I've spent a week doing just about exactly as you
described with PB but with very limited results to-date. I may be retired
but my time is still worth something so spending weeks on it doesn't really
appeal. Also, it's not really the way I want to start my 3.1 build ( a
"bucket list" item , for sure ! J )

 

The good news is that the seller has very kindly offered me a replacement
motor to strip and use the pieces I need - case, crankshaft, etc. I'll keep
the 140 heads from this motor and I hope to get everything else from motor
#2. To be fair to the seller and myself, we knew there was exterior rust but
neither of us could have foreseen the extreme interior rust.

 

Regards,

Bob

 

 

 

From: RoboMan91324 at aol.com [mailto:RoboMan91324 at aol.com] 
Sent: September-01-11 7:35 PM
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org; bgilbert at gilberts-bc.ca
Subject: Problems with a 140 tear down

 

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

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