Restarting an old engine

[crash]

I have a 283 V8 Chevy in a new project vehicle. The motor was last running about 16years ago. About 6 months ago I put some kero in all the cylinders to soak through. Up to this point I was still unsure if the engine was siezed or not.
Last night I jacked up the rear end, put it into high gear and was able to turn the tailshaft one complete revolution before it stopped. I can work the tail shaft back and forth one revolution then it stops solid. From the markings I made on the front pully looks like the engine has made 3/4 to one full revolution, so It is not totally seized.
My first thought is I come to full compression and am unable to turn the engine any further due to a lack of strength, or I have sticky valves and what little kero is left in a cylinder is hydro locking.
I will pull the sparkplugs tonight and try turning it over by hand again to see if I can get more than one revolution out of it.
My worse fear is bending something internally.
What else should I be looking at or doing before I tempt fate and connect a battery up to it?

[bee utey]

Having seen plenty of kero tins rust out I would never choose kero to soak an engine. You may well have a ring of rust around a bore. Remove the plugs and use plenty of penetrating oil. You may be able to turn the engine past the rust but the rings may end up stuck in the pistons so you'll have to strip it anyway. Check for stuck valves by blowing into the bores with a piece of heater hose as each cylinder gets to firing TDC.

[crash]

Initially I was going to use diesel but he old man said kero was better, so I listened to him as he has alot more experience in this area than me.
By penetrating oil do you mean CRC or WD40 or similar?

[Tank]

At school many years ago we did and experiment using steel wool in jars with different liquids. One jar had steel wool and Kero another jar had water and steel wool, within a day the kero had started to rust the steel wool, at the end of the week the jar with water and steel wool was still in good condition. The one with kero was just a brown liquid, no steel wool left.
After 16 years you should be pulling the engine down, rings will be siezed in the ring lands, valves will be rusted and held open, coming into contact with pistons and as you have filled the bores with rust improver it would be smart to pull engine down, Regards Frank.

[Blknight.aus]

keros good for penetrating and getting stuff moving but not for longevity, brake fluid and ATF works well as well.

my suggestion, pull it strip it and rebuild it or it wont have a happy life.

[harry]

it's probably turned round far enough to stop with a piston hitting a stuck valve,
don't try it, rip the heads off, it's going to need a valve grind anyway, possibly cheaper than popping the head off a valve and rooting a piston and bore

[crash]

Getting to the spark plugs is a real PITA on this beast. Will have to pull the plugs and put some ATF in. Will be awhile before I get around to tearing the heads off. Stuck valve is my guess as well. I wanted to avoid pulling it apart but will have to now. One more thing to add to the list.

[Bigbjorn]

I have had success with seized vintage/veteran/historic engines that have not run for 40 years and more. Take off the oil pan, side covers, rocker/cam covers, remove spark plugs, fill cylinders with a mixture of distillate and ATF, then immerse the whole thing in a tub of the same mixture for a couple of weeks.

[crash]

I have had success with seized vintage/veteran/historic engines that have not run for 40 years and more. Take off the oil pan, side covers, rocker/cam covers, remove spark plugs, fill cylinders with a mixture of distillate and ATF, then immerse the whole thing in a tub of the same mixture for a couple of weeks.

That sounds like a good idea. Any particular ratio of distillate and ATF? Only thing I have big enough to do that is my water trough, don't think the goats would like that.

[Bigbjorn]

That sounds like a good idea. Any particular ratio of distillate and ATF? Only thing I have big enough to do that is my water trough, don't think the goats would like that.

About half and half seems to work. A 44 drum cut in half or de-lidded will fit pretty well any automotive engine. you only need to use enough liquid to immerse the engine. Old bath tubs are easy to come by but hold too much liquid making for an expensive exercise.

[Tank]

You are going to have to dismantle the engine, sticking it in a tub of diesel and ATF will cost a bundle and you will never get the oil out of the water jackets without hot tanking which involves dismantling the engine, bite the bullet, Regards Frank.

[harry]

Getting to the spark plugs is a real PITA on this beast. Will have to pull the plugs and put some ATF in. Will be awhile before I get around to tearing the heads off. Stuck valve is my guess as well. I wanted to avoid pulling it apart but will have to now. One more thing to add to the list.



firstly, if you can turn it over to a point where it stops turning going one way and also stops turning going the other way,

it's not siezed....

but, in my opinion, it is most likely got a valve wide open that is stuck and won't spring back,
so that is why it will not turn over completely.
with the effort you have imparted so far, the head of the valve has been hit a few times and the stem is now probably bent.

the only way to fix this is remove the heads.

to persist is to impart further damage to the engine.
one of the nasty things that could now happen if you manage to run it , is the head of the valve breaking off with resultant gross damage to the head, piston, cylinder walls.

basically lunching the engine.

blacknight dave said it before me,
stop, pull the engine.

[Bigbjorn]

You are going to have to dismantle the engine, sticking it in a tub of diesel and ATF will cost a bundle and you will never get the oil out of the water jackets without hot tanking which involves dismantling the engine, bite the bullet, Regards Frank.

(1) The cost is not a burden as when finished you put a cover on the drum and use the stuff time and again. You can use second hand ATF saved from your own oil changes.

(2) Silly me naturally thought that as it had not run for 25 years he is going to pull the engine and give it a rebuild, not try to fire it up and hope for the best.

[bee utey]

In the end, what's this engine worth to you? Check that no valves are stuck open by lifting the rocker covers and having a look. Tap the valves with a soft face hammer and see which ones bounce back. Then CRC or whatever penetrating oil is your fave, pull out the plugs and spray it in. The rust may be very minor and diappear with the first crank. It's up to you. In my youth I met a few rusted up motors that took brute force to break loose but then ran OK if a bit smoky from marked bores.

[harry]

In the end, what's this engine worth to you? Check that no valves are stuck open by lifting the rocker covers and having a look. Tap the valves with a soft face hammer and see which ones bounce back. Then CRC or whatever penetrating oil is your fave, pull out the plugs and spray it in. The rust may be very minor and diappear with the first crank. It's up to you. In my youth I met a few rusted up motors that took brute force to break loose but then ran OK if a bit smoky from marked bores.


i'm not in the business of fixing silly mistakes,
so my advise is totally my opinion,'but to try to start it is silly,'it hasn't run for 16 years, has a blockage that stops it turning over fully.
beating the valve to loosen it may do that, but it is a bad approach to something that is so far from regular maintenance.
if he was to get it running and then get it on the road, it may fail in a most desperate situation.
why not fix it now before so that the engine will also be roadworthy?

i don't understand this 'on the cheap mentality'

[bee utey]

i don't understand this 'on the cheap mentality'

Tapping the valves is for diagnosis, not loosening. If none stick, proceed to the next part of the diagnosis. It could be something as simple as caked combustion deposits that have fallen off. Seen that before. Once they have been softened by CRC and/or blown out by compressed air, the engine may turn just fine. If not, proceed to dismantle.

Its always better to do the simple checks first.

[crash]

There is little room to work on this engine in the vehicle, will have to wait a couple of weeks before I can get it out and start the tear down.

One incident that we were very lucky not to damage an engine was when dad and I flat towed a ute around 30kms accidently in high gear. The ute sat unused for around 20 years or more up to that point. A few hours after getting it home we had it running.