I’m going to venture a statement here - you knew A LOT more about engines at 15 than most people of all ages do right now, and sounds like you were willing to learn more. Kudos to you.

 

Steddy, Only knew the basics of engines, mostly from disassembling an old cast iron B&S engine and some junk mower exploration. Big item was i had the Deere 440 manual with drawings, no fear, and just didn't know any better. Big help was a parts guy at the Deere dealer in Sandusky MI. Told me how to install the parts (my dad paid for) I was buying. Lucky me, that Deere engine was built like a tank and survived a kid. I recall thinking..."somebody put this together originally".... That it ran for a few years after, may have been just a miracle.

 

We had many engines in vehicles at the junkyard that were "stuck" after sitting too long without being run,ones that were good runners when they were hauled in...some we managed to free up and get running by the usual methods--soaking the cylinders with marvel mystery oil or used ATF,using a pry bar on the flywheel teeth to break them free,or towing them down the road and popping the clutch..some didn't like being stuck too long and instantly developed issues like bent push rods,valves that opened once and never closed again,or had the rings ruined and they smoked like crazy...others ran rough a minute or two and then cleared out and sounded good again.

One old car we had from the 40's had a straight six in it that got stuck ,and soaking it and prying on it and the usual methods proved worthless..

The boss showed us a trick he'd used a few times on cases like that..he had us take the heater hoses off the "torch truck" engine and connected them to the engine in the car,and used other heater hoses off the junkers to block off any extra ports on both engines,we blocked off the water pump on the stuck engine (car had no radiator) and we filled them both with water,and let the torch truck engine run for a good half hour--by then the car's engine block was pretty warm,then we tried to use a pry bar on the flywheel and it broke loose!..then we were able to put a battery in the car and get it spinning over,it started up after several revolutions with some gas & oil down the carb...turned out to be a good running engine once it was running awhile..

 

Wow, pre heat, now that's a unique method, but then it does make some sense. Neat!

 

Huh. Preheat with another engine... I like it. If I were the boss, after seeing that trick work a few times I'd have had the guys put some quick connects on the torch truck. Make up a set of lines with quick connects on one end and that job just got easier in the future.

 

One big shop in our area (they also did antique cars so they were sort of competition for us) swore by Coca-Cola. There was a bottling plant in town, they'd get barrels of the stuff that were unfit for use in the plant (contaminated in one way or other) and they'd use them for soaking barrels. When they had a stuck motor, they'd drain the oil and fill it all the way up to the top of the oil filler (that also got the valve train on overhead motors), plus pull the plugs and fill the cylinders with Coke. They'd put a big long bar on the crank with a weight on it, and check it every few days. When the bar hit the fender, it was time to drain all that stuff out, fill it with oil, and give it a lot of turns with a ratchet, then if it moved okay, put everything back and give it a try on the starter...

 

When I was a lad I watched a mechanic who leased the work bay of the car wash I worked at free a siezed engine by removing the rocker shaft and filling the cylinders with grease.
A method I have used for decades with good effect

 

Awhile back I picked up a tecumseh HH60 off the side of the road that was locked up. I just dumped some ATF down through the plughole, let it sit for a few days then put a socket on the flywheel nut and eventually got it to free up after rocking it back and forth a bit.

I still don't know if it runs as of yet, I don't have anything to mount it to. :banghead:

 

Back when I worked at an auto parts store that had a auto machine shop,we put many seized up air cooled engines in the "hot tank" filled with Oakite,for about 15 minutes..(any longer and the die cast parts would dissapear!)--most of them spun freely once removed and rinshed out...the heat expanded the cylinder some,and the chemical would eat away the rust quickly...

 

The grease pump method seems to make sense. I've used it with a trans alignment tool and hammer to pop out a pilot bearing in a fly wheel. Wonder if it were stuck half way down or more,..... that would require a lot of grease wouldn't it?
Or am I not thinking of this method correctly?

 

Yes you have it right
A bit of intelligence is required
You have to pick a piston that is decending
You can pull the head and put fillers in there or my favourite pour ball bearings down the plug hole
I salvage then from old bearing races for this purpose
Injector need to be loose in the plug hole so the air can escape.
And yes it uses a lot of grease , but I recover most of the grease and it goes into the trash grease bucket used for greasing bolts or coating things to prevent rust
I have a McNaught mini lube so pumping 2lb of grease in is no problem
Actually I have 1/2 dozen of them for different greases and tho oldest worst gun gets used for this
Good for popping stuck master cylinders, slave cylinder, caliper pistons etc etc

And yes it can bend rods if the crank is frozen or there are several other stuck cylinders so naturally they would all have some sort of penetrant in them.
However is most cases , if the piston is rusted into the bore the con rod will be toast in any case.
And if it is an overheating seizure then the rods would not be replaced by any competiant mechanic unless it is an emergency situation .

 

You'd probably want to choose a cylinder pretty close to the top to conserve grease, or maybe one that's half way for max leverage on the crank. Piston rods beware!

 

friend didn't check oil in a push mower I sold him. Then wouldn't turn over . I filled it with marvel mystery oil and let sit and then used breaker bar to get it moving. He's had two more summers of grass cutting with it.