So, this weekend I had the pleasure of flying down from Berkeley to start work on (disassembling) a '67 2.0L that is to become a vintage race motor...lo and behold, as soon as I got in on the stand, I realized that this thing has an overactive bladder problem, like it needed one of those many anti-diuretic drugs advertised everywhere (you know, the ads in which a lot of older people really have to "go")...but this dribbling and tinkling wasn't all oil; it was water!
Great! Water in a motor always proves to be a rousing good time.
And, of course, it was. After finding several stripped out exhaust stud nuts and all kinds of fun surprises, I got the heads off no problem (even though I think there is mold growing in the cam housings). However, I then came to the daunting task of the rusty cylinders. I've been there once before--on a '67 911S, unfortunately--but this was one was worse. In both cases, after PB Blaster, tapping this way, tapping that way, trying to turn the motor over (100% FROZEN), and a myriad of solutions in between, I had to resort to chiseling the cylinders apart (carefully, so as not to disturb the precious aluminum case, the point of the disassembly in the first place).
After about 2 hours, I had five cylinders off, including both cylinders with the pistons near TDC, which usually prove the hardest. Ironically, it was the last one (Cyl. #1) I did, with the piston at BDC, that gave me the most trouble. At first, I started chiseling, nothing too abnormal, but then, this cylinder literally split circumferentially all the way around, approximately at the case spigot line (just like a wonderful dilavar head stud that snaps off right at the case
). No worries, I said, it will come out, it's just a cylinder.
But, come out it did not.
It feels as though all the rods except #1 are free at the crank end (ie., normal) , and the crank has gone from "frozen" to "ever-so-slightly mobile" (with the demolition of the other 5).
I figured if I got the crank to turn over, the rod would simply force out the rusted piston/cylinder out, but I broke a crank pulley bolt doing that (nothing else is hanging up; sprockets in the chains, rods angled correctly to keep from catching on the case, etc.). So, after a few choice words and the extraction of the broken crank pulley bolt (no permanent damage), I was back at square one.
Now, I've pretty much racked my brain for ideas, from gun powder to lasers, and I'm not giving up, but I need some advice from someone who's been here.
What I really don't get is why the cylinder piece is so tightly wedged in the spigot. The other thing that makes this so complicated is that, because I cannot rotate the crank, I cannot access the wristpins on the other side of the engine, to remove the pistons on that side and split the case.
Anybody have any good idears? I'm going to sleep on it and see if anything pops into my head.
Thanks.
Scott
2:45 A.M...