Thread: Seized engine or starter motor given up?

take the spark plugs out and see if you can crank it

...

I'd suggest seeing if you can tow (drag chain) or shunt start it (bullbar to bullbar or bullbar to towbar).

Possibly has a bent starter armature or crook starter internals. (burnt brushes, colapsed stator, burn armature). The fact the terminal got to glowing red means it's a fairly hefty short to earth through the starter.

Shunt starting will show it's in the starter if the motor starts and runs.

Then again thinking about it a little more....

Undo the pulley belt and see if you can get the motor to turn over. If it does, crook waterpump installation.

If it still bauks at the request to wind over then I'd be attempting a tow start with the belt off, just to quickly prove it will start, then add things back into the equation like the pulley belt back on, tow start again. If the motor starts by tow start but not by the key then it's a good probability the starter has servere problems.

Thanks for those diagnostics, Hellspawn.

I had a crack at it last night and attempted to remove the plugs (of course, my kit has the wrong size) - I also had a go at turning over the engine with the crank again and managed a complete turn before it stopped and will not budge at the same place that it stuck last time.

Unfortunately, I live on a very residential and narrow street leaving little room to play around unless it's middle of the day during the week.

Would I be right in assuming that as a reasonably strong chap. if I physically cannot turn the engine with the manual crank and the plugs in, that there is a seize issue?

I will try the push start when no one's looking - or just move out into the bush where I can make as much noise as I want

not neccessarily

it could be anything from water in a cyl to a starter motor problem.

the fact that it turned once before grabbing again indicates to me that it is not a siezure, more something in a cyl or something out of shape.

silly question i know but

you do have it in neutral when you are trying to crank it over dont you?

Most definitely in neutral.......last car I cranked was a 1907 Humberette which put up much less resistance that this, so not sure just how much pressure I need to exert before I know there's a problem

Need to get my hands on the correct s plug socket size and test this evening - will also try Hellspawns push / pull tests.

I am now suspecting head gasket issues due to loss of coolant on last trip (I thought it was through a leak in the water pump) and thus a potential hydraulic seize.

Any ideas as to how much I should tell her that we now need to take off the holiday budget for a head gasket replacement?

Sounds like you live in a similar situation to me, though I can hide up many of the culdesacs not far from where I am which is good for "test drives".

I'd be pretty happy if I could turn a motor over by hand. Have a 2A motor and box sitting on the chassis down stairs and there's no way I can turn it over with plugs in. It's a hook the car on to start job.

Siezed to me is will not move at all which is when you start tipping clean motor oil down the plug holes to hopefully free up the pistons. Normally happens if an engine has sat for too long without movement (years) or overheated in someway (oil or water loss). Probably not this in your case.

There's not water in the bores is there ? That you can turn it to the same position makes me wonder if there is water in one of the cylinders so I'd be following incisor's advice take the plugs out checking whether it will turn by both hand or starter. If there is water in one or more cylinders it's about the point things get ugly.

I don't think you have that problem either though I just added it as it's something to think about in your detective work. Probably is just an engine with good compression like mine downs stairs that can't be turned over easily by hand and just has a crook starter. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif[/img]

Originally posted by Surferjim
Any ideas as to how much I should tell her that we now need to take off the holiday budget for a head gasket replacement?

depends if the head is warped ..

head gasket and hylomar will get you going till you are more financial but dont leave it to long...

ops: Must be too used to my landy... always late.

Shouldn't cost all that much to redo the head. Though if you're going to the trouble of taking the head off not much more to take the pistons out. Which I'd recommend now you mention water has been lost from the cooant system.