I just picked up another project. 84 jetta. The P/O put it in storage back in 02, and just pulled it out last week. I saw it sitting on the side of the road with a sign in it. Talked to him about it, he said it has a stuck motor. So I gave him the 100 bucks he wanted for it and towed it home. The motor is stuck, and stuck good. He said he had mystery oil in the cylinders for about 3 months. I stuck a braker bar and pipe on the crank pulley and couldnt get the thing to move. So I put it in gear and rocked it back and forth and nothing. My plan was to toss a newer moter, with a little more pep, in it. But if I could get this one broken loose and running I might just be able to leave it in there. I dont wanna get into anything like pulling the head, just not worth it to me. I've got a bigger motor that will go right in it.

and sugestions?


Coop

 

Knock the center out of a spark plug and weld a grease zerk into it. Fill the cylinder with grease and then use a grease gun to pump more grease into it and break it loose. You can put close to 10K psi on it that way. Know of several running motors that got broke loose that way.

 

Take out spark plug.

Fill cylinder up with gas.

Put back in spark plug.

Start engine.

We did that with a few Briggs and Stratton engines back in the high school days. The motor sure wasn't "stuck" after that, although the engines did seem to develop a little bit of blow-by, if you know what I mean...

 

How does one get the grease out of the cylinder after it is free? And how long does this take to get it to free up? should I do it on 2 of the cylinders at the same time, maybe put twice the preasure on it?




How does one start the engine when I cant get it to even move?

HAHA


Coop

 

I'd just try one. If it's been soaking for a while, putting the pressure on it will make it pop loose pretty quick if it's going to come loose. Once it's loose, cranking it over will spray the grease out of the sparkplug hole. I recommend cranking it over by hand a time or two to pump most of it out and then be prepared for a mess when you crank it with the starter.

We did that with a 2-cyl John Deere and there were large grease blobs shooting out the side for 50' as we pulled it and then grease blew out the stack for several hundred feet as we tried to pull start it.

 

You only need a spark.

 

My neighbor was telling me that him and his dad had an old tractor motor and one of the cylinders was seized. They tried everything: diesel, gas, oil, penetrating fluid. Nothing worked. Then an old-timer (no offense to the elders on here lol, you guys are wiser than me) told them to put a can of coke down it and within a day of that coke sitting in there the piston/cylinder free'd up. I had the same situation with a bolt on my W250's steering shaft. I tried everything and then I tried some diet pepsi (any cola with phosphoric acid will work) and I hit it with the impact and hot dang that bolt came out nice! Makes you wonder what coke does to your guts .

 

If you do try that method and if it does work, I highly reccomend you pull the head and get as much grease out as you can. I can see something like this making a huge mess downstream of the tailpipe if it ran.

Now the other thing I just thought of, you MUST find the cylinder that is on its COMPRESSION stroke. this will be the cylinder that has both exhaust and intake valves closed and the pressure from the grease will put the force on the piston to force it down. If you do a cylinder with a valve open then no matter how much you pump the grease gun you will never develop any pressure as the grease will simply excape into whichever valve is open.

 

It definitely will SMOKE for quite a while and the CAT probably will be very unhappy but both of those are good things, right?



Good catch. Sorry that I forgot to mention that. On non-overhead cam motors, you could just back the rocker arms off on that cylinder.

 

Another trick that may help you is to drop the oil pan and loosen all the rod and main bolts up a little. It is possible that the oil settled out from sitting and it is basically friction binding it up. I have a motor in the barn lick this. She was totally froze up. I loosened up the bearings and she went to spinning. Not so much as a scratch on the crank.

 

We broke one loose by filling the crankcase with marvel mystery oil and then putting the car in gear. We hooked on with the CTD and drug it until it broke free.

 

I tried that, it was on dirt and i put it in 3rd with someone towing me and let the clutch out. Nothing, weels just spun, so I droped it in second and nothing again. Mabye the clutch was slipping IDK.


I think my next step is to pull the oil pan and check for any amounts of rust in the cylinders. If i find any out with the motor.

I pulled the oil filler and looked at the cam. dry as a bone. Not a drop of oil on it. So it might just need to be oiled up.


How does one find which cylinder is on compression stroke?

 

Remove the valve cover and check the camshaft- the one with the cams looking up is the right one- i would not try the grease method.... VW blocks ain't that strong.
I had good results with WD40 into the cylinder, on the camshaft (by oil filler) and into the crankcase (by oil drain plug)- repeat 3-4 times within one day and then gently rock the engine back and forth- 5th gear and a little pushing the car forward and back.
The Coke method will work on rusted rings, but you won't want to have this engine afterthe rings have rusted to the liner. (VW engines are rather touchy on tolerances)

HTH

AlpineRAM

 

well last night I made sure that there was mystry oil in each cylinder. I checked it a lil while ago and found there there was only oil in one cylinder. Meaning that 3 are free and only one is stuck. So I pull the oil pan, to look for rust, first thing I notice is a massive dent. Looks as if someone decided to jack it up on the oil pan. Off it came, I look into the cylinder and see nothing out of the ordinary. I tried smacking on the crank with a brass hammer, at the same time putting preassure on it with a socket on the crank pully. Still stuck.

I'm gonna stay away from pumping grease into the cylinder because it will just push my head gasket out of the way before it moves the piston.

Coop

 

The coke trick works great. Have loosened up several that way.

The cola also works great for getting aluminum wheels loose, that are stuck on an 18 wheelers. Whether with alum/steel wheels or alum wheel stuck to hub and/ or brake drum.