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Fluid drive locked up?


50BusiCoupe

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Hello all I’ve been trying to get my ‘50 business coupe motor to rotate.  I can go about 30 degrees at the crank than it just stops. I pulled the distributor cap and the rotor moves with the crank. It sounds as if I’m turning the transmission gears. The fender states this is a fluid drive car. Should I not be able to rotated the motor with the trans in nuetral?  The left rear wheel is also locked solid.  I imagine the clutch is stuck but my understanding was the guild drive should let the motor rotate when stopped.  Any ideas?  My next thought is to pull the driveshaft and maybe check the emergency brake to see if I can get any more rotation. 

Edited by 50BusiCoupe
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I suggest you pull the head and inspect for stuck valves and the short, maybe rusted cylinder wall and thus prevent internal damage/galling to cam/lifter etc...your call though...this in my opinion has the less likelihood of doing damage...if you just freeing it up to do a tear down and rebuild, you may be replacing the items automatically you  may damage and in that case....get a larger lever...

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You could check to see if a fluid drive coupling is in place, or if it has been removed.  Lift the carpet on the right side of the transmision tunnel and remove the access panel on the passenger side of the hump.  You should see the fluid drive unit if one is installed. 

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4 hours ago, busycoupe said:

You could check to see if a fluid drive coupling is in place, or if it has been removed.  Lift the carpet on the right side of the transmision tunnel and remove the access panel on the passenger side of the hump.  You should see the fluid drive unit if one is installed. 

Good idea I have no carpet but I can definitely pull the cover and look. 

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6 hours ago, Plymouthy Adams said:

I suggest you pull the head and inspect for stuck valves and the short, maybe rusted cylinder wall and thus prevent internal damage/galling to cam/lifter etc...your call though...this in my opinion has the less likelihood of doing damage...if you just freeing it up to do a tear down and rebuild, you may be replacing the items automatically you  may damage and in that case....get a larger lever...

That is the next step I believe as well I just got the car in Oct and the motor always turned the same so I’m not sure that it is locked up but the head coming off is the next logical step when we get consistent 50 degree weather in the day.  I have another head gasket and an entire spare motor in pieces that I will use if needed or combine the two if needed to make a good engine. I would like to keep the original block if not destroyed. What is revealed when the head comes off will tell quite a bit.  

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Pulled the little cover and the maybe 2” diameter metal plug looks like the fluid drive is still there.  I guess the ultimate goal is to get to the nuts for the fluid drive to be able to pull the engine. Or can the engine be pulled with the bell housing and FD attached? 

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Generally you want to remove the transmission and then pull the engine, clutch bell housing with the fluid coupling all as one unit.

 

One word of advise, make up three or four little wedge shaped blocks of wood. Put a notch length wise across the larger end face of the wedge. Before pulling the trans, tap the wedges between the clutch and the fluid coupling. wrap some bailing wires around the entire thing, with the wire in the notch's to hold the wedges in place.

 

What this does is to make sure that the clutch does not rock when the input shaft is out of the fluid coupling. If it is, the thing can rock and damage the carbon seal in the coupling. leave the wedges in until the trans is back in.

 

James

 

PS. Frank has it right I think, a bad connecting rod I would suspect unless the engine had the head cut too much and a valve is hitting the head. First thing take the head off.

 

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I’m going to try head removal tonight. 
 

the problem with the wedge system is without being able to rotate the motor I cannot get to three equal points to support the FD/clutch.  Another reason to try to get the engine to rotate at least 180 degrees. If I can figure out how to shrink the size of my pictures I’ll post cylinder pics tonight if I can get the head removed before I’m too tired lol. 

Edited by 50BusiCoupe
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Well the verdict is in!!

 

all pistons move up and down cylinders do not looks as bad as I expected. Valves well the valves are screwed. 4 move freely the rest rusted right down to the block ?. I have a truck engine that I bought that is in decent shape but in parts was a military ambulance motor from what the guy has said. The very odd distributor cab and wires confirm part of the story. Guess I’m building the truck engine to swap in.  I still need to figure out how to rotate the engine at some point unless there is sufficient access to remove bell housing and FD unit after engine removal with out it rotating freely. 

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32 minutes ago, Doug&Deb said:
52 minutes ago, Frank Elder said:

What would I be looking for in respect to the rods?  IMO I’d have an easier time pulling the engine to do a tear down and inspection. And to compare the engine I bought to replace this one if it was too far gone.  An engine on a stand it much easier for me to deal with. 

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Frank...I have seen carboned up engines that would not turn over with the carbon fallen from the combustion chamber and down on the piston after sitting, getting damp drying out and then flaking off and down...simple pull the head, decoke....new gasket and many miles and smiles down the road....a piston, if more than one car cut rust to a certain degree then bind up again....seen this many times also.  Would I suspect a bent rod...only if the lever used was quite long....would I suspect rust and frozen valves....you bet your sweet bippy I do...

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The pistons all move freely the motor turns pretty easy until they cam tries to lift the stuck valves. I only tried to turn the motor by rotating the cooling fan with my hands. Not if a previous owner tried with tools I can see something being bent. 

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I was trying to tear down a frozen engine last year. I finally got the piston rings freed up. Pistons and rods out the top. Crank still would not bar over with a 32" long breaker bar. Then I got to the valve train, as it was still frozen and not allowing the crank to turn.  Guess that point I could have removed the timing chain to see if crank would turn.

 

You can't remove the camshaft until the valve lifters are out. Cannot get lifters out until valves are out. 

What a bear of a job that was, to try and teardown rusty valves that were frozen. I reassessed the situation and stopped. I took the whole lot of it to the scrap yard. My goal was the learn all about the internal workings of the Mopar flathead 6. I accomplished that. The block had been sitting partially disassembled since about the early 70's. Frozen valves, with the tools and methods I used...Not fun.  I found another pile of scrap Mopar parts including another 1949 218 engine for a heck of a price.  I tore it down happily and easily. 

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9 minutes ago, keithb7 said:

Guess that point I could have removed the timing chain to see if crank would turn.

 

This ought to work for the OP.  I've had some luck using Kroil to loosen up stuck valves as well.  My core 230 has a few and maybe this weekend I'll get round to finishing the tear down with my son.

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When I tore down my engine it was seized up tight. I had to pull the crank out the bottom with the FD still attached. Then I could start working the pistons down with a wood block and hammer. I could then clean up the cylinder bores enough to drive the pistons up and out of the block. Then my focus changed to the cam and valves. Pretty much all of the valves were seized too. With a large Channel Lock pliers on the cam gear I started rocking the cam back and forth until I got all of the valves to lift fully. I could then pull the cam and lifters out. I hammered the valves back closed so I could remove the retainers and springs, then I could use a long punch and drive the valves out from the bottom. The machine shop saved the block with a 0.030” bore job, all new valve guides and seats, decked the block, and milled the head. I reassembled with new valves and pistons. It’s been running great for many years. 

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Take all the valve springs off and the retainers if you can with the stick valves in place. Cut them away if you have to.

 

Take a oxygen - acetylene torch and head the center of the stick valves until they are glowing red. Then stick a little wood block on the lifters and a little steel pry bar and whack it to try and pop the valve up. Be careful both to not hurt the block or lifter and also I have seen a red hot valve fly up and hit someone!

 

You can also try putting a vise grip on the and turing it to free it up then tap it out.

 

If you get it red hot, it till move.

 

PS. MAKE SURE it is not a truck sodium valve or it will explode if you try this! Not likely to be, but check.

 

James.

 

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At this point and since this is not a highly collectible car I will more than likely assemble the engine I’ve already bought that moves freely and already machined and ready to be put back together. I’ll move all my accessories over to the replacement. I may then work on the valves and tinker. My goal is to hopefully having to running and be able to move under its own power by the fall. 

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