Thread: Restarting an old engine

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

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.