<VV> Was Gift Horse, Now Seized Engine

[RoboMan91324 at aol.com]

A couple of years ago, I was on a search for a 180 engine to replace the 
140 engine in my 66 Corsa.  It was originally a turbo car.  I found someone 
here on VV who had one and was willing to sell it.  He claimed that it had 
been running recently and that it could be turned by hand.  The engine I 
received was seized more solid than any other in my experience.  There were a 
multitude of issues I had with this individual in this transaction but that is 
not the story here.  For obvious reasons, I will not mention his name in this 
post.

All pistons were frozen solidly in their respective cylinders.  I pulled 
the heads off and all other possible parts to have access to the innards.  I 
soaked the tops and bottoms of the pistons/rings with PB Blaster and anything 
else I could think of for a couple of weeks without success.  My "Plan B" 
was to unbolt the connecting rod caps from the rods and slip the cylinders 
and pistons out of the crankcase as assemblies to be dealt with individually.  
Unfortunately, the crankshaft was in just the wrong position where I could 
not access 3 nuts on the caps.  Further, a number of the cap bolts could not 
be removed because they were too close to the case and I could not remove 
their piston/cylinder assemblies because the bolts would contact the 
crankshaft before I could move the rod down far enough to clear the edge of the 
crankcase.  I ended up using a cutoff wheel to slice through the nuts and bolts 
I couldn't remove through traditional means.  Once out, I hammered the rods 
to the point that they came directly out of the cylinders rather than at an 
angle and used my 12 ton hydraulic press to pop the pistons out of the 
cylinders.  Most of them let loose with a very loud crack.  I sent the cylinders 
out to be bored but the pistons were trashed, of course.

Perhaps, someone can use my unfortunate experience when faced with a 
similarly seized engine.

I hope that everyone is having a great holiday season and will have a 
prosperous new year.

Doc
1960 Corvette; 1961 Rampside; 1962 Rampside; 1964 Spyder coupe; 1965 
Greenbrier; 1966 Corsa turbo coupe; 1967 Nova SS; 1968 Camaro ragtop