Patrick,
It certainly is discouraging to know that the engine in your car is stuck. As
you read in earlier posts, this is not unusual. I stand behind my original
advice, and would highly suggest that you drop the pan as I indicated earlier.
If the inside of the motor is dark and oily, you may have a chance of freeing
the motor. If it is rusty you will not.
If it becomes free, you should accept the fact early on that the motor should
be rebuilt. The damage from being stuck can be serious and will haunt you
sooner or later. Rebuilding a 392 Hemi is not cheap. I paid over $5,000 to have
my 331 rebuilt over five years ago, and they did the job in their "spare time".
One of the hardest things to find at that time were new pistons. The club may
have a source, but I wasn't a member of the OIC at that time.
The transmission cooler lines are not a serious problem. You can actually
splice them later with hose clamps and rubber lines (probably 3/8 fuel hose).
Although not the preferred method, this is common. Back when I first owned my
'65 Imperial, the transmission went out, and I paid a well known chain to fix
it. I later discovered that they had actually cut the lines and spliced them
this way to put it back together. It ran like that for a number of years until
I finally paid another shop to replace all of the lines and upgrade the
transmission in the process. Those lines can be fixed later, and the repair is
simple and cheap (if you decide to do it yourself).
The black goo in the top end of the engine is not surprising, and is probably
another indication of the lack of care that the car received late in its life.
On the hemi engine, if the bottom end is stuck, the top end often is also. That
means that you should remove the valve covers and disassemble and clean the
rocker shafts before you try to turn the engine again. Damage to those parts
will really cost you, and is totally avoidable by being patient and careful.
Paul
In a message dated 5/2/2004 10:51:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time, PNKMoore writes:
> I've finally got grease under my fingernails! I've had the car since Easter
>Monday, and I finally got to take a solid crack at it today, though I only had
>about two free hours to work on it.
>
> My friend Kevin and I pulled to plugs (after I labeled the wires). It
> was easier said than done given the fact that the passenger side plug
> cover was long gone and squirrels had lived on top of the engine for
> years and years. There was also water standing in the spark tubes (gooed-
> up with vegetable debris of squirrel meals) from the pressure washing
> I'd given the motor when I first got the car. (Goodbye squirrels' nest)
> Ministrations with a shop vac and a long, thin screwdriver got most of
> the gunk out from around the plugs so we could pull them without dropping
> watery leaves and mud into the cylinders. We didn't attempt to remove the
>valve
> covers, but Kevin pulled two of the plug tubes and we could see inside.
> I didn't want to see too much after hearing his initial sigh, so I
> only took a glance but there was a thick layer of cracked black goo on the
> bottom. I had this dream of the heads being clean, especially with the low
> mileage, but no such luck. We couldn't release No. 8, the plug under
> the heater fan (if indeed that is "No. 8.") so we left it for another day.
> The rest of the plug wells I accessed with a long, thin plastic funnel and
> poured a healthy dose of Marvel Mystery Fluid into each piston chamber.
> We could just barely see the tops of the pistons by shining a pen light
> down the shafts: all black with carbon deposit.
>
> Kevin was a diesel mechanic in his younger days (relatively speaking.
> I'm 39 and he's 42) and he was dying to try and turn the motor at the
> crank shaft. To do this, as you all know, we'd have to pull the
> radiator. So, while he dug out the spark wells, I figured out how to
> separate to two-part fan shroud, which I thought was pretty neat, and
> pulled off the top hose. I tried to avoid it but I ended up cutting the
> bottom hose simply because I couldn't get enough leverage to yank it off
> while lying under the car. We hadn't jacked up the car because it would
> have reduced our labor to one guy on one job. Sadly, while contorted
> down there I also twisted and broke one of the two transmission cooling
> pipes while trying to unscrew it from the radiator tank. &*%$#@@&$&!
> I ended up doing the same on the other pipe, on purpose, thereby creating
> a new repair that needs to be done later. That won't be the first time
> I do that during this project, I have little doubt. I guess I can splice
> in a patch. Anyone out there ever done that? I'll also have to remember
> to try and flush those out.
>
> In working on the radiator, I could see that someone had drained it
> long ago because the stop-cock was wide open. Shrugging off the mix of
> positive and negative connotations of that discovery, we carefully
> unbolted and (thanks for the warnings, fellas!) gently drew out the
> radiator, sparing the fins and A/C coil. There was a little trickle
> of dirty water out of the bottom tank when I turned the radiator over,
> but no other surprises. I believe the radiator was quite new when the car
> was retired. I wanted to follow another IML tip and flush out the water
> channels in the block with a garden hose, but I didn't want to get the
> garage floor wet before I was sure I didn't need to crawl under the car
> anymore. I passed on that chore for another day.
>
> We now had the front end opened up with the radiator out of the way.
> Kevin had his huge socket set, so we found the match for the drive shaft
> and pushed a pipe over the wrench and gave it a few shoves. Nothing
> moved. Frankly, we didn't push too hard. We socketed and torqued each
> appliance (generator, power steering pump, etc.) and saw that each of
> them turned against the fan belts, so if anything is really frozen, it's
> the block. It would have been great if it had just spun around, but no
> such luck. Given the fact that we've only just poured lube into
> the piston chambers and that the engine has sat since 1977, I'm holding
> out against acknowledging a small tragedy and hoping instead that the
> lube will do the job.
>
> I also took a few minutes to hook the car up to my battery charger.
> The charger has a 75 amp starter mode that I've never used, but today
> I flipped it on to check for signs of electrical life from the dashboard.
> The headlights came on, which was very heartening, and the six-way seats
> buzzed a little when I tapped the paddle. I mashed on the driver's door
> window switch and heard some arcing and buzzing, but didn't press my luck.
> The fan switch did nothing, and I didn't keep the power on long enough to
> try every single thing. I did turn the ignition key, having been under
> the impression that the starter operated from the neutral button on the
> dash. The un-mistakable "clack" of a starter bendix hitting the flywheel
> resulted, and I quickly backed off. I guess I was misinformed or the
> starter switch was converted. (??) No horn, the radio was deader than
> crap, and I couldn't raise a flash out of the turn signals.
>
> We ran out of time at that point, locked up the garage and ran off
> before our wives sent out the posse. One night later this week I'll
> go back and label all of the screws that we took out to remove the
> shroud, etc. I can see that I'm going to have to be very, very
> careful about documenting any tear down that I do because I'll forget
> how to put it back together. I don't have a digital camera... yet!
> There's a new reason to get one now, though I don't relish the idea of
> handling a piece of electronic equipment with dirty hands and flashing photos
>of the engine compartment. I also want to bring the shroud home (as I've
>explained before, the Imperial is housed in a garage a few blocks from my
>house) and place it along
> side the air cleaner and the lone spark plug guard for prepping and painting.
> I also want to start a notebook of all of the jobs I'm deferring, like the
>crankcase water chanel flush and the broken trans-mission cooling tubes.
>
> Kevin was a great help, and we had a lot of fun working on the car. I kept
>reading it on the IML email, but now I've lived that fact that this is a great
>hobby because you can so easily involve friends. We're looking forward to the
>next chance we have to work on it. I hope next time to take off the oil pan
>and clean it out, then the valve covers.
>
> Kevin speculated while we put our tools away about the "frozen" shaft. He
>wonders, as I have in the past given how extremely difficult it has been to
>push this car, whether the transmission is in gear and "freezing" the motor.
>If we'd had the time, he wanted to jack up the rear and see if he could turn
>the motor with the rear wheels freed. Specifically, he wanted to raise the
>right rear, his best guess at the "power" wheel. I'm pretty ignorant about
>drive trains and thought that the car would have traction on both wheels.
>Kevin corrected me, but we are both rusty with respect to automotive
>technology in general and we don't know jack about the specifics of old
>Imperials and whether Posi-Traction was standard. etc. He wanted me to ask
>you all if there is any way to tell if the transmission is engaged against the
>crankshaft?
> Should we drop the drive shaft and try to turn the motor again?
>
> I'll welcome all advice, admonitions and musings from the
> Club. Thanks
> for all of the guidance you've given so far.
>
> Patrick Moore
> Southeast Louisiana
> 1958 Southampton 4 door hrdtp
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