Stuck Motor: What's Your Secret Sauce?

Yeah the phosphoric acid in Coke? I've used lye solutions to clean really baked on grease.it's like oven cleaner only you mix your own **** real strong.It'll remove some rust without attacking steel and iron.But it will eat up aluminum in time.Might be good for a stuck engine,clean the cylinders and slowly beat up the pistons.Lye is super nasty,goggles and gloves needed.

 

Diesel works great, let it set for a week and add some everyday
And it is cheaper.

 

Yeah - the phosphoric acid in Coke works over time, but the concentration is such that it won't eat your pistons.

~Jason

 

any carbonated soft drink works the same as Coke hell plain carbonated water might work.Go with PB Blaster or Croil whatever OIL based penetrant you like NOT WD40 (Water displacement 40th formula try) and instead of beating the hell out of the pistons after you remove as much rust/junk as you can from the bores try making and using this.
take a piece of thick flat stock that will bridge a cylinder so you can drill and bolt it down using a couple head bolt holes across the bore.Either drill and tap the center or weld a big nut to the center so you can thread a heavy piece of allthread or a big bolt through the plate down onto a piston .Cut a disc of thick s**** slightly smaller than the piston top.
find a piston that is close to TDC but not straight up drop the disc on the piston bolt the plate over the bore and crank the bolt down hard against the disc now fill the cylinders or spray them whatever you prefer and let them soak keep hard pressure on the center bolt you basically have a screw press that can put lots of pressure on the rotating ***embly.Using an impact gun also helps break things loose this will often work where other methods won't. You can use a couple of these 180 degrees apart on the same engine for more push.Never thought of the dry ice thing using that along with this "press" technique should work even better

 

Off road non taxable deisel fuel with a quart of Dextron ****** fluid. Let it sit sealed for a week. Work it with a socket to the crank bolt and rock it back and forth until it moves, then get a few clockwise rotations. Drain the crankcase, fill with used motor oil, drain again. Fill with good oil and fire it up. If it doesn't knock, but smokes, let the engine run for a few minutes to build oil pressure and wake up. After that, rev the **** out of it. If the smoking out of the exhaust stops, you are good to go. If it doesn't, you need rings.

 

Bought a six cylinder Camaro for 150 bucks that had been laying under a peach tree for seven years. Motor wouldn't budge. Pulled the plugs, filled the cylinders with ATF until the ATF was running out on the ground, screwed the plugs back in and let it sit for a couple of weeks. Took the plugs back out again, made sure the cylinders were full of the ATF and screwed the plugs back in. Came back a week later, pulled the plugs again and slapped a hot battery in. Tapped the key a couple of times and finally tried to crank it. ****er started cranking so hard the ATF it blew out of the spark plug holes cleared the fender and landed about 30 feet from the car. Put in fresh plugs, primed the carb, and it lit right off. After a fresh load of gas in the tank, the car ran like the proverbial top. Had about 750 tied up in it total after getting it cleaned up and painted (Earl Sheib maybe, I can't remember).
I'll never know if it was the blue Z stripes (white car) I put on it that allowed me to sell it for 1500, thereby doubling my money, or if it was just that it ran good (which it did), but the girl I sold it to drove it for years.
Sometimes you get lucky I guess, but it sure made me a believer out of me for using ATF to unstick motors.

 

Just did it the other day.... Bought a car two weeks ago with a stuck motor. Pulled the plugs, mixed half Marvel mystery oil and atf. Filled each cylinder. After one week it would roll over one complete turn and stop. Filled them again, 3 days later... were good to go...

 

kroil, marvels mystery oil, atf, pb blaster

 

Kroil works- 2 weeks and we put the car in 2nd and rocked it back hit the starter with 12 volts and damn it turned over!!!

Kroil works

 

Kroil or Mouse Milk is what I use.

You can still purchase Mouse Milk Steve-Cook just google it and a few places pop up. I just get it from work.

 

Don't forget that there are many versions of "stuck". Some come loose with just a couple of days of soaking, and for those it probably doesn't matter much what sort of magic mixture is used. For all you know, piss may have worked, since it does have a little oil in it from those donuts and bacon you had earlier in the day. On the other end of the spectrum are those where electrolysis has bonded the pistons and bores into a virtually inseperable solid, and it requires destruction to get them apart. And of course there are innumerable versions of "stuck" in between the two extremes. Magic solvent that works on one won't necessarily work on the next. Makes me laugh a little when folks "guarantee" that their particular solvent will free up any motor. I got a Cadillac flathead sitting in the shed right now that's stuck, and I'll bet the price of a new set of pistons for it that NONE of the mixtures advertised here will free it up without doing some damage to the pistons or bores. FYI, this motor is on the "very stuck" end of the spectrum.......