We called moving the stuck engine back and forth, rocking the engine. When putting boat engines away for the year pouring special oil in while the engine runs (fogging) put some oil in the cylinders and valves. It's not enough coating to last more than a year or two. Also closing up the carburetor/ flame arrestor helps keep air and moisture out. Old-timers always said back off the valve adjustment for long-term storage...
Haha you should find an old Detroit 2 stroke book and read the long term storage details. Stuff like wax paper between the belts and pulleys,they weren't playing around.
Same deal on 2 stroke outboards, and four stroke (depending on carburated or fuel injected) just some fuel with this oil in it (specific stuff obviously), either run it till she smokes a bit on light throttle snap, and cut it for EFI, or run it dry with carb. Simple, but it just keeps them good. So much of any small engine problems, from what i see, is bad gas, old gas, water in the gas, then just destruction from neglect but yeah
When my daughter was16, our neighbor offered her a ‘79 Dodge Aspen 225 for free. It had been sitting for 6 years. After we killed all the wasps, we took a fresh battery and vital fluids to see if it would wake up… it did, and sounded pretty good. We determined that the Tourqueflite engaged, and the brakes wouldn’t. It was a father and daughter project, we worked on it together. If I was getting greasy, so was she. It ended up being her daily driver for several years, very dependable. She sold it to our trash collection guy, he drove for some years, later told me he sold it to a friend, it may still be alive. She named it “Old Yeller”.
Thanks Tony, I've got a 1975 Chevy square-body step-side pickup that's been in my garage for 26 years. The front clip had been removed making access to the engine easier. The truck ran when I parked it. I put a socket and breaker bar on the harmonic balancer and it laughed at me. Wow, I thought of the worst case scenario (pull heads and yank block). I saw your video and guess what? Took about 8 hours of small shots of Blaster penetrant and little by little movement of the crank and she broke free. No damage and she's turning a full revolution smoothly. Great video and many thanks. Keep up the good work!
I just freed up a 383 that’s been sitting on my garage floor for 5 years!! Cylinder 4 was completely full of acorns and had a valve stuck in the piston. Wd40 and couple wacks to the piston with a 2x4 punch block and it rolled right over !
@@rcnelson I saw a chipmunk go in and out of my garage all last year but didn’t see any signs of nesting, I’ll take nuts over nesting any day! I found a couple other small stashes but this was their honey hole .
My uncle Masa had a can of pb blaster that I borrowed. It worked so well that I went out and bought a can for myself and 1 more for uncle Masa. It just seems to work better than other products.
I used 2 cycle oil and kerosene mixed together. Filled each cylinder waited 1 day 24 hrs. Then removed the starter used pry-bar on the flywheel teeth back and forth the flywheel greatly increases your leverage on the crankshaft so you can turn the engine over just like the small starter. Engine started right up.
My tractor sat for 20 years and moisture had gotten into the 3rd cylinder when the exhaust valve was open. It was completely stuck and wouldn't move at all. Diesel fuel in the cylinders over night and next day it started rocking back and forth and then broke free. Quick spin with the starter cleaned the bores. Runs great.
I bought a 42 Plymouth once at an auction, it didn’t run no surprise there. But I had little time to work on it so a so called mechanic checked it out for me. He said it was seized really bad, I sold it to the first person that offered what I paid for it. He had it running 2 days later. It turns out the parking brake was engaged, they have the brake on the drive shaft. Just goes to show check everything close. I hope somebody got use from my little story.
Tony I would change the impeller for good measure. If it’s been sitting the rubber blade is probably hard and took a set. They probably won’t last and why pass the broken pieces through the system if ya don’t have to. I have no experience with out drive setups but inboards I know.
Had an 82 Outboard come in, looked near brand new, carb clean, thing ran fine as kind, pumped aswell. Long term, ordering a kit and praying one random hoarder has one, would be the goal but yeah.
Even though everything you said and did is 100% spot on I have a suspicion that you are going to find that the exhaust manifold is corroded and leaking water into the exhaust port of one cylinder. To say that this is common on those mercruisers would be a huge understatement.
Just an FYI from an old Mercruiser mechanic; your drive system was used on all Mercruisers, including the 260 hp SBC 350. Mercruiser even used them behind a 330hp 454 for a short time. The V-8s have a different length driveshaft on the drive than the inlines. An inline 6 cylinder chevy will bolt up if you move the front pedestal forward; I once installed a Target 292 in a Sea Ray. Just saying...
4 cyl drives have 1.94 to 1 ratio , the I6 250 had 1.62 to 1 ratio, and the 350 uses a 1.47 to 1 ratio. Watched a fool waste a lot of time and money trying to figure out why his boat would not get on plane, why it guzzled fuel, right after he got a "good deal" on used drive, (with the wrong ratio).
I had to free up an old Ford motor that was going in my nephew's '53 panel truck. It had been sitting for 8 or 9 years. Each cylinder got a good dose of WD-40. Then it sat for a few days. Then each cylinder got an ounce of 5-30w oil. Then it again sat for a few days. It got a piece of unistrut bolted on to the flywheel which we proceeded to beat on with a large hammer. We got the engine freed up and it ran like a champ. Doesn't burn any oil either.
Have worked on plenty of those, the weak point on raw water cooled versions is the front of the front cylinder, its very thin. They machine a little behind the water pump and that gets thin...
I'm sticking to my guess that the exhaust manifold is corroded and leaking water into the exhaust port of one cylinder. I've replaced many manifolds and risers on four and six cylinder mercruisers for just what tony is experiencing.
Not a bad bead at all! But being major OCD, I'd really want to run TIG, instead. Certified L.A. City welder and A.B.S. certified. But your answer is easier for most folks to do and doesn't require hours of schooling. I like diesel fuel for this. Right combination of oil and detergents. Love your teaching and your channel.
An old hot rodder slash retired mechanic I used to know would fill the blocks up to the combustion chambers with used oil. He preferred ATF. He said that it would keep them from rusting and dissolve the sludge and not form sludge in the oil pan like the way would after years of setting.
My Jeep friend always did this with river engines he would find. But he also did this Tony. Used a air compressor and added an oiler line to both intake and exhaust and blew oily air into the engine as he freed them up so intake valves and seatings and rods and all got a dose of lube as they started to free as well. You mite think it's over kill. But we do not. Lol
I was thinking, how bout filling the bad cylinder with Evaporust, and leaving it for a day. I dropped the pan on one of my engines that had sat unstarted for a few years, that’s when I saw how effective oil rings are at scraping the bottoms of the cylinders free of oil, all the visible swept parts on the bottom were orange with rust. I live in a very wet climate though.
Uncle Tony you know I’m up in North Jersey. Taking a boat for a spin on Christmas is not what we aspire to do haha! PB Blaster is my go to because it works for me on stubborn stuff. Nice and easy is great advice on the breaker bar or equivalent back and, fourth. No hard torquing. Important tech here Tony. Thanks for sharing! It will no doubt save many folks a bunch of buck$$$$$!
I was building a low dollar big block A body in 1996. Picked up a 361 for 50 bucks The guy said it’s been on his garage floor for 10 years. Unfortunately there was still water in it, and had rusted out the steel shim head gasket and fill the cylinder with water B and yes Rusticles . To free up the engine I put it on a stand with the spark plug facing up fill the cylinder with transmission fluid made adapter out of a spark plug to adapt a porta Power and hydraulically broke the rings loose from the cylinder walls. Then proceeded to free the motor up in the exact manner you explained in this video. The end result was I drove the car for eight months with that motor until I Spun the bearing at the dragstrip but it turned 12s.
Great video! I bought a 55 Dodge pickup that had a 383 that is stuck. I didn't buy it for the engine, but I kept it and it's been sitting inside since I bought it. I always assumed I would just have to tear it apart and rebuild it to get it running, but who knows? Maybe it's not as bad as I think. I will have to pull the plugs and check it out. I did pour diesel fuel in every cylinder when I stored it so that should help.
I'm only 3and a half minutes through but I just want to point out sometimes a pulley will sease up and not the motor so always check your belts and make sure it's not that causing it
Go ahead and order the water pump kit for the outdrive I Chanel it every season. Probably be a good idea to do the gimbal and shift bellows at the same time.
Good advice Tony. It's kinda like tapping a hole. It you try to force it all at once you will brake the tap. Whether it's a rusty piston ring clogged up from crap scraped off the rusty cylinder, or metal bound up in the threads of a tap, you have to go backwards to release the debris and allow the lubrication to flow in ,or you will break shit.
I use a 50/50 mix of acetone and automatic transmission fluid. It actually eats away the rust. I found an antique Soviet Union KMZ Dnepr military sidecar motorcycle that was imported from Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was new having been built in 1972 and lost in a warehouse 20 years before being exported. It had problems as everything made by workers living under communism do so it should have been taken apart, everything checked and repaired and then put back together. The person that imported his "Indiana Jones motorcycle" from Ukraine didn't know that so it sat in his barn 27 years before I got it. I purchased it for it's sidecar and frame but after the engine sat overnight soaking in acetone and automatic transmission fluid the engine freed up and turned over easily. That's when I decided to save it as a running and driving relic of the cold war. Today it's a good reliable motorcycle I enjoy very much.
i bought a68 chrysler 300 back in the early 80's. somebody had put new plugs wires cap and rotor on . They couldn't get it started. (the point had come off the arm ,was welded to the other point and the arm was sparking on the back of the points.) they sprayed two cans of ether through it and then left it set all winter. In the spring I bought the car for 50 bucks, put marvel mystery oil in the cylinders and left it set for 3 days. I could get it too rotate forward with a breaker bar. Couldn't turn it backwards even with a flywheel turner. I ended up bolting another pulley on the crank with a slot for a piece of 1x2 flat bar. Worked it back and forth very carefully with a hydraulic jack on the frame. got it freed up in about 4 hrs. I drove it for six months and sold it for $1300 . total cos was a can of marvel oil and a set of good points. you are absolutely right that you can free them up if you take your time. P.S. it only used a quart of oil every 800 miles. A lot of those old 383 motors burned that much straight out of the factory.
I used this type of technique on my dads 455 olds motor with great results. I had no idea where the motor was stuck. I was worried it was in a cam or crank journal but it makes more sense now it must have been the cylinder walls. I wasn’t expecting much but after plenty of careful back and forth movements (I treated it like a was cutting a thread) it finally fired up with no major issues
I'm a diesel tech and I work on heavy equipment. We have a small broderson crane my boss purchased from fpl that has one of these iron duke 4 cylinders in it but it has a drive by wire throttle body on it with port injection and a coil on plug ignition system. It runs good but I think she's gonna need a set of plugs soon.
Next thing Tony makes a boogie board out of a Valiant hood and a tow rope from some old jumper cables just in time for the family boat outing on Christmas morning! Hell yeah!!!!
Cannot overstate the importance of rotating a stuck engine BACKWARDS! Rust will form a ring where the rings meet the cylinder walls and form a "chock". Pulling the piston down below that really helps the penetrant work and soften that chock. I've freed MANY tractor engines by putting the transmission in high gear and tugging the tractor backwards slightly until it frees. Sometimes takes a few days but almost always works.
A Miata with a slant six, Harley Sportster, many cars and their related systems being tuned and prepped, and now a boat. Just looking at all the irons Uncle has in the fire makes me too tired to even move. I wonder if a Cessna is next. The man is a dynamo.
VGG simply puts a pull handle on the harmonic balancer and rotates it in both directions until it fires up. Deisel fuel, WD, and rans fluid in the sparklators helps too.
Another great vidio.....thanks. You get a feel for these things when you work them slowly. Freeing rusted bolts or rusted anything else, and feeling the stretch in a bolt before it breaks....it's all about feel. I like a dial torque wrench for that reason. When you slowly approach a torque spec and the bolt starts to stretch you know exactly how close it got. 2.2/2.5 mopar head bolts with the 1/4 turn after 65 ft lb revealed real problems with some after market head bolts using a dial wrench. Good bolts would finish up over 90 ft lbs. Going old school and doing a re-torque, they'd all start moving around 70 ft lbs. That seemed to solve my head gasket problems
@@anonmachina I have no experience with stainless but would definitely test one to see what it will take. You might want to check with someone that knows stainless as it doesn't all have have the same properties
My dad made a 3/4 inch steel plate drilled to match the head bolts on an old Case tractor. Put a fitting in the middle for an air chuck. Marvel Mystery oil over night and 120 psi no more stuck piston. Only works if the piston is up though
I think P.B. blaster was the first consumer grade product to work. Marvel Mystery oil and other "penetrating oils" just didn't work that well. Uncle Tony was PB the first? I seem to recall it being called "nuts off" or some thing in the 90's
With that extendo sump you might make a little more power too if you can maintain the same oil volume, and thus a lower oil level for extra low windage.
Truly words to live by UT. Had an old Evinrude Mate from a family member, sat for 30 years at least and frozen solid. all it took was 2 weeks, some marvel mystery oil, just enough force and a fresh set of rings and it runs like a champ.
Knew a guy who would buy locked up farm tractors. Filled the cylinders with kerosene and atf and walked away, left them in gear. Whenever he was in that shed, just rocked the rear tires a few times. Sometimes, they would sit soaking so long, he didn't even need to put rings in them, just sell a 0 effort running tractor.
Boat bust out another thousand ...me and boats dont mix you got more love for them than i ever will i do like watching those kids drag race in those tiny river boats with twin turbo mitsubishis and toyotas andvtge occasional turbo diesel now thats some funny stuff watching this piece of plywood that barely floats rip up a river with a kid wearing a great Gatsby t shirt 80s tennis shoes a pair of shorts and a pack of old gold s laying flat in a tiny river boat going 100mph up a river to a certain early death now that always entertains.
Definitely change the impeller. It is either cracking and about to fail or already falling apart. It will make the first day on the water a bad day if you don't. First one I replaced was on a 3 year old boat. Ever since, I never run one more than two years old. Impossible to fix while on the water. I also have it suck up some environmentally friendly antifreeze when I winterize the boat to protect the cooling system.
Air can get in from any open valve and cause rust . A few engine storage tricks: Slowly add some oil or ATF to the intake and hand turn the crank until you make 2 full rotations this will coat the valve surfaces with oil and prevent an open valve from rusting. NO AIR = NO RUST Plug and seal all air paths into the engine, intake, ex sys, AIR or other emissions. PCV systems, vented valve covers, vacuum lines, etc. Unload the valve springs by releasing the lash adjusters completely this helps the keep all the springs at the same tension and cuts off air flow to the top parts of all cylinders.
@@luke8210 I wouldn't suggest it. There is a very good chance some will get past the rings and be pumped throughout the oil system. I doubt you would ever get rid of all the acid.
I found if I'm going to store any engine what I do is I pull out spark plugs fill all the cylinders with transmission fluid and put spark plugs back in keeps cylinder from getting rusty
I worked my way through an apprenticeship with two kids and a wife at home by freeing up Mercruisers, mostly the 4 cylinders. They were all run in salt water and had no freshwater cooling. After sitting for a couple of months, many of them were stuck. After trying the rocking method, I pulled a head and to my surprise the cylinders were not rusted. After a lot of head scratching, I figured out the rings were jammed into the cylinder by corrosion behind them. Couldn't think of what to do, so I built a fire in each cylinder, one by one. Used kerosene and transmission fluid. every hour or so I'd rock the engine and check that piston, if I got any hint of movement I'd move onto the next cylinder. It was slow, but it worked, never had any problems with the engines one they were freed up and running. I guess once running, the engine broke up any remaining junk behind the rings. These boats were many years old, for the most part, and the owners weren't going to put out the money for rebuilds to a shop, that's how they ended up with me.
You pull your engine oil drain plug and pull all your spark plugs out. You are removing the PB blaster that seeped past the piston rings into the crankcase and while the engine is turning over, the pistons are spitting the PB blaster out the spark plug holes, so your engine will be all cleaned out.
I got an old John Deere MT that flash rust on the cylinder walls sticking the engine. I used a bit of vinegar to free it before pulling the pistons. Glad I did, the rings were shot and the main bearings and crank journals has a grove in them that ain't supposed to be there. Now I'm just trying to figure out how pine straw got in the cylinders when it was setting far away from any pine trees.
Those 3.0s airlock something fierce in the cooling system when you refill them. Drain 3 gallons and only 2 wanna go back in. Guaranteed it'll give ya hell, every one I've worked on has. At least that's how they are in generator sets. Gotta do the old school trick of a bleed hole in the thermostat.
There is nothing to fill on that mercruiser, it gets its cooling water from the same body of water the boat is in. The water is drawn in by a pump that uses a rubber impeller at the bottom of the outdrive and exits out the exhaust in the center of the propeller.
@@davidleonard8369 that they do. It’s still very similar to a generator in that it is a pressurized cooling system even tho it’s not a closed system. The engine still runs at 180 depending on the thermostat.
@@The_Impulse not trying to be a d##k but you lost me on the mercruiser having a pressurized cooling system. No radiator or heat exchanger and no pressure cap. Technically it's an open total loss system. When the water in the engine gets up to temperature the thermostat opens and allows fresh water in and the hot water is expelled out the exhaust. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, as I have been incorrect many times in my life.
I have heard that gasoline boat engines need "Fogging oil." It's an oil that is sprayed down the intake so it sticks to the bore and rings. It keeps water out. I don't know what you could use for a diesel. I like that endoscope cameras are affordable. They do an even better job of telling you what is happening inside the engine. Good luck on a timely repair.
How to launch a boat Christmas morning in northern Minnesota. Hook boat trailer to pickup, grab the chainsaw, plus several cases of Busch Light, drive out onto the lake, drink some beers, cut big hole in ice, drink more beers, drop boat in hole, drink more beers and figure out how to get boat back on the trailer.
Thank you. PB Blaster? excellent suggestion. I will try it on my 1985 Ford that has been sitting for about 8 years (just to make sure is lubricated, too)
On boats , this is commonly linked to bad throttle plate bushings (moisture path started there) and the gasket missing from the flame arrestor at upper lock nut.pull the plugs quickly if it's a vortec motor , or you may snap a chunk of block off at the starter mount pad.
Water leaked through engine cover , probably no plastic under the vinyl. Pooled in the throttle plate made it's way into intake (the Weber-Carter afb sieze first) then unlucky cylinder. The valve guide takes a beating too.
Watch Out!!!! I bought a cabin cruiser with volvo penta 5.7L that looked like New! It was suposed to have only water rust just like that one!. I tried auto trans. Fluid with acetone, diesel, wd 40, name it. So i left diesel for a while and when i actually free it a bit, I did all Uncle Tony did. I was just about to start it and find out the "block was crack" between cylinder 3 and 5. High enough that it didnt leak oil. Water was lefted in and froze. There's a lot of stuff around that i coulnt see it before i filled water to start. The engine is 3 feet deep in 27' boat and it was very hard to see. I learned to Fill with water before you spend hours of sweat. Youll see the color of residu coming out other end.
Love all the tips and tricks. You might consider getting a borescope. It would save alot of guessing and alot of pulling heads. I have a few older optical Olympus', but the newer webcam styles can be had for peanuts.
"So, we took it out to the dragstrip last night and it was running really good... Until the bottom of our pan blew off and sprayed two gallons of oil all over the track."
BIG big big hint on the wiring, skin a couple of the wires in the middle of the harness and make sure the wires are not green or white, ( should obviously be copper), if they are g or w, it will run great on out of water but not at all on the water. It's a very common problem on all water vessels no matter their size. There's been a lot of them scrapped because of it. On the seized engines, My Dad and I used trans-fluid and a big honking screw driver or pry bar on the flexplate/flywheel depending on std. or auto, with a pull handle on the front of the crank, me at the back under the car because I was younger he would always say, (after removing the starter of course) and him on the front, sometimes it took only a couple of minutes but some of them took hours to get freed up. Diesel works too but you have to flush it out a lot after freeing it up or it will immediately foul out your new set of plugs 3 or 4 times before it will start and run. We learned that 1 the hard way 😶 but carb cleaner fixes that problem easily. Great job getting it turning Uncle Tony, BUY GOOD PAIR OF PADDLES, and a trolling motor with an extra battery, paddling SUCKS😏. NEW FEUL PUMP AND WATER IMPELLER IN THE FOOT also check the gear lube in the foot too.
I had a boat I bought “locked up” was a 3.0 merc. The starter was so full of rust it wasn’t allowing the flywheel to spin even with a wrench on the crank. Pulled out the starter and it spun free
I got really lucky , Had a 96 Corvette convertible with a frozen engine that I bought for $500 in absolutely amazing condition with only 60k miles , took out the spark plugs & pumped diesel fuel into thecylinders with a transfer pump, Let it sit for 1 week & fully charged the battery, It slowly Unseized itself everytime I tried to start it I saw the drive belt move a tiny bit , After about 10 times it finally broke loose completely & now the car is back running, Sold the car a month later on eBay for $8,600
My wife's cousin had a 4 banger inboard that went bad. We have a Merc outboard and I always bomb the cylinders (all 3) with fogging oil for over the cold Wisconsin winter. Would you ever look into the cykinders with a borescope?
Are you putting the fluid in the spark plugholes? would white vinigar work , coudl you put ih in the cylindar head and manually move backand forther, also woudl it be worth draining the oil out first?
We called moving the stuck engine back and forth, rocking the engine.
When putting boat engines away for the year pouring special oil in while the engine runs (fogging) put some oil in the cylinders and valves. It's not enough coating to last more than a year or two. Also closing up the carburetor/ flame arrestor helps keep air and moisture out.
Old-timers always said back off the valve adjustment for long-term storage...
Haha you should find an old Detroit 2 stroke book and read the long term storage details.
Stuff like wax paper between the belts and pulleys,they weren't playing around.
So the Hues Connection was wrong. You ARE supposed to rock the boat.
Same deal on 2 stroke outboards, and four stroke (depending on carburated or fuel injected) just some fuel with this oil in it (specific stuff obviously), either run it till she smokes a bit on light throttle snap, and cut it for EFI, or run it dry with carb. Simple, but it just keeps them good. So much of any small engine problems, from what i see, is bad gas, old gas, water in the gas, then just destruction from neglect but yeah
@@jeffbecker8716 I got it.
Can't wait to see Tony skiing behind his boat.
Like the fonz
@@vicmccartin Maybe jump the shark like the Fonz?
🤣🤣🤣 In his suit from the 70's 🤣🤣🤣
While smoking 🚬
Not in December... Unless he joins the polar bear skiing club. 😂
When my daughter was16, our neighbor offered her a ‘79 Dodge Aspen 225 for free. It had been sitting for 6 years. After we killed all the wasps, we took a fresh battery and vital fluids to see if it would wake up… it did, and sounded pretty good. We determined that the Tourqueflite engaged, and the brakes wouldn’t. It was a father and daughter project, we worked on it together. If I was getting greasy, so was she. It ended up being her daily driver for several years, very dependable. She sold it to our trash collection guy, he drove for some years, later told me he sold it to a friend, it may still be alive. She named it “Old Yeller”.
Thanks Tony, I've got a 1975 Chevy square-body step-side pickup that's been in my garage for 26 years. The front clip had been removed making access to the engine easier. The truck ran when I parked it. I put a socket and breaker bar on the harmonic balancer and it laughed at me. Wow, I thought of the worst case scenario (pull heads and yank block). I saw your video and guess what? Took about 8 hours of small shots of Blaster penetrant and little by little movement of the crank and she broke free. No damage and she's turning a full revolution smoothly. Great video and many thanks. Keep up the good work!
I just freed up a 383 that’s been sitting on my garage floor for 5 years!! Cylinder 4 was completely full of acorns and had a valve stuck in the piston. Wd40 and couple wacks to the piston with a 2x4 punch block and it rolled right over !
Acorns? I'd blame squirrels.
@@rcnelson I saw a chipmunk go in and out of my garage all last year but didn’t see any signs of nesting, I’ll take nuts over nesting any day! I found a couple other small stashes but this was their honey hole .
My uncle Masa had a can of pb blaster that I borrowed. It worked so well that I went out and bought a can for myself and 1 more for uncle Masa. It just seems to work better than other
products.
You like pb blaster,
Try jb80
It’s literally twice as good
Aerokroil has entered the chat. King of penetrants. It literally creeps.
I used 2 cycle oil and kerosene mixed together. Filled each cylinder waited 1 day 24 hrs. Then removed the starter used pry-bar on the flywheel teeth back and forth the flywheel greatly increases your leverage on the crankshaft so you can turn the engine over just like the small starter. Engine started right up.
My tractor sat for 20 years and moisture had gotten into the 3rd cylinder when the exhaust valve was open. It was completely stuck and wouldn't move at all. Diesel fuel in the cylinders over night and next day it started rocking back and forth and then broke free. Quick spin with the starter cleaned the bores. Runs great.
Yup...diesel is my goto and it hasnt let me down yet!!
I bought a 42 Plymouth once at an auction, it didn’t run no surprise there. But I had little time to work on it so a so called mechanic checked it out for me. He said it was seized really bad, I sold it to the first person that offered what I paid for it. He had it running 2 days later. It turns out the parking brake was engaged, they have the brake on the drive shaft. Just goes to show check everything close. I hope somebody got use from my little story.
Tony I would change the impeller for good measure. If it’s been sitting the rubber blade is probably hard and took a set. They probably won’t last and why pass the broken pieces through the system if ya don’t have to. I have no experience with out drive setups but inboards I know.
Had an 82 Outboard come in, looked near brand new, carb clean, thing ran fine as kind, pumped aswell. Long term, ordering a kit and praying one random hoarder has one, would be the goal but yeah.
Even though everything you said and did is 100% spot on I have a suspicion that you are going to find that the exhaust manifold is corroded and leaking water into the exhaust port of one cylinder. To say that this is common on those mercruisers would be a huge understatement.
That makes alot of sense from being a boat mechanic/car on problems you may run into that makes a difference in the 2.
True. Nobody ever takes care of a boat properly. And those manifolds crack and leak with age.
Just an FYI from an old Mercruiser mechanic; your drive system was used on all Mercruisers, including the 260 hp SBC 350. Mercruiser even used them behind a 330hp 454 for a short time. The V-8s have a different length driveshaft on the drive than the inlines. An inline 6 cylinder chevy will bolt up if you move the front pedestal forward; I once installed a Target 292 in a Sea Ray. Just saying...
250 six good engine but blocks like to crack.
@@cammontreuil7509 so they're not good engines.
@@importsstillsuck I've had all Merc boat engines. Even the 305.
For gas mileage and speed the 250 in my opinion is really good.
4 cyl drives have 1.94 to 1 ratio , the I6 250 had 1.62 to 1 ratio, and the 350 uses a 1.47 to 1 ratio. Watched a fool waste a lot of time and money trying to figure out why his boat would not get on plane, why it guzzled fuel, right after he got a "good deal" on used drive, (with the wrong ratio).
@@jamesgeorge4874 funny. Seen that one before too.
I had to free up an old Ford motor that was going in my nephew's '53 panel truck. It had been sitting for 8 or 9 years. Each cylinder got a good dose of WD-40. Then it sat for a few days. Then each cylinder got an ounce of 5-30w oil. Then it again sat for a few days. It got a piece of unistrut bolted on to the flywheel which we proceeded to beat on with a large hammer. We got the engine freed up and it ran like a champ. Doesn't burn any oil either.
Back in the day we unstuck an engine with Marvel's. It really worked.
yep its a mystery how it works... :)
Word !
Might be a mystery, BUT IT WORKS!!!
Water pump impeller on top of the lower unit is shot...good news is the pump and housing is relatively cheap...replace them.
It's amazing what the spark plugs can tell you about the health of an engine.
Have worked on plenty of those, the weak point on raw water cooled versions is the front of the front cylinder, its very thin. They machine a little behind the water pump and that gets thin...
Would sleeving bore #1 be a wise idea at rebuild time?
@@skylinefever There is very little meat to do that.
3.0 mercruiser motors are notorious for cracking block and heads even if winterized. Also check the bellows on the out drive
I'm sticking to my guess that the exhaust manifold is corroded and leaking water into the exhaust port of one cylinder. I've replaced many manifolds and risers on four and six cylinder mercruisers for just what tony is experiencing.
Not a bad bead at all! But being major OCD, I'd really want to run TIG, instead. Certified L.A. City welder and A.B.S. certified. But your answer is easier for most folks to do and doesn't require hours of schooling.
I like diesel fuel for this. Right combination of oil and detergents.
Love your teaching and your channel.
Love all the tips you give, I hope that all the people watching enjoy them as much as I do.
An old hot rodder slash retired mechanic I used to know would fill the blocks up to the combustion chambers with used oil. He preferred ATF. He said that it would keep them from rusting and dissolve the sludge and not form sludge in the oil pan like the way would after years of setting.
My Jeep friend always did this with river engines he would find. But he also did this Tony. Used a air compressor and added an oiler line to both intake and exhaust and blew oily air into the engine as he freed them up so intake valves and seatings and rods and all got a dose of lube as they started to free as well. You mite think it's over kill. But we do not. Lol
Would be a good idea to check the compression before you go ANY further.
I was thinking the same.
@@BrewBlaster at least it gives you an idea if you have a boat anchor or not
Won't tell you much yet. Once the motor runs a while the rings can seat back in. You won't get a true reading until that happens.
@@Private0Malley no but if you got 25 to 60psi it's probably not worth messing with. Compression won't go up more than about 20 to 30 psi
I was thinking, how bout filling the bad cylinder with Evaporust, and leaving it for a day. I dropped the pan on one of my engines that had sat unstarted for a few years, that’s when I saw how effective oil rings are at scraping the bottoms of the cylinders free of oil, all the visible swept parts on the bottom were orange with rust. I live in a very wet climate though.
thats genius.
Uncle Tony you know I’m up in North Jersey. Taking a boat for a spin on Christmas is not what we aspire to do haha! PB Blaster is my go to because it works for me on stubborn stuff. Nice and easy is great advice on the breaker bar or equivalent back and, fourth. No hard torquing. Important tech here Tony. Thanks for sharing! It will no doubt save many folks a bunch of buck$$$$$!
I was building a low dollar big block A body in 1996. Picked up a 361 for 50 bucks The guy said it’s been on his garage floor for 10 years. Unfortunately there was still water in it, and had rusted out the steel shim head gasket and fill the cylinder with water B and yes Rusticles . To free up the engine I put it on a stand with the spark plug facing up fill the cylinder with transmission fluid made adapter out of a spark plug to adapt a porta Power and hydraulically broke the rings loose from the cylinder walls. Then proceeded to free the motor up in the exact manner you explained in this video. The end result was I drove the car for eight months with that motor until I Spun the bearing at the dragstrip but it turned 12s.
Great video! I bought a 55 Dodge pickup that had a 383 that is stuck. I didn't buy it for the engine, but I kept it and it's been sitting inside since I bought it. I always assumed I would just have to tear it apart and rebuild it to get it running, but who knows? Maybe it's not as bad as I think. I will have to pull the plugs and check it out. I did pour diesel fuel in every cylinder when I stored it so that should help.
I'm only 3and a half minutes through but I just want to point out sometimes a pulley will sease up and not the motor so always check your belts and make sure it's not that causing it
Go ahead and order the water pump kit for the outdrive I Chanel it every season. Probably be a good idea to do the gimbal and shift bellows at the same time.
Good advice Tony. It's kinda like tapping a hole. It you try to force it all at once you will brake the tap. Whether it's a rusty piston ring clogged up from crap scraped off the rusty cylinder, or metal bound up in the threads of a tap, you have to go backwards to release the debris and allow the lubrication to flow in ,or you will break shit.
Love the lime green engine! 😋😍
Me too!
I use a 50/50 mix of acetone and automatic transmission fluid. It actually eats away the rust. I found an antique Soviet Union KMZ Dnepr military sidecar motorcycle that was imported from Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was new having been built in 1972 and lost in a warehouse 20 years before being exported. It had problems as everything made by workers living under communism do so it should have been taken apart, everything checked and repaired and then put back together. The person that imported his "Indiana Jones motorcycle" from Ukraine didn't know that so it sat in his barn 27 years before I got it. I purchased it for it's sidecar and frame but after the engine sat overnight soaking in acetone and automatic transmission fluid the engine freed up and turned over easily. That's when I decided to save it as a running and driving relic of the cold war. Today it's a good reliable motorcycle I enjoy very much.
i bought a68 chrysler 300 back in the early 80's. somebody had put new plugs wires cap and rotor on . They couldn't get it started. (the point had come off the arm ,was welded to the other point and the arm was sparking on the back of the points.) they sprayed two cans of ether through it and then left it set all winter. In the spring I bought the car for 50 bucks, put marvel mystery oil in the cylinders and left it set for 3 days. I could get it too rotate forward with a breaker bar. Couldn't turn it backwards even with a flywheel turner. I ended up bolting another pulley on the crank with a slot for a piece of 1x2 flat bar. Worked it back and forth very carefully with a hydraulic jack on the frame. got it freed up in about 4 hrs. I drove it for six months and sold it for $1300 . total cos was a can of marvel oil and a set of good points. you are absolutely right that you can free them up if you take your time. P.S. it only used a quart of oil every 800 miles. A lot of those old 383 motors burned that much straight out of the factory.
I used this type of technique on my dads 455 olds motor with great results. I had no idea where the motor was stuck. I was worried it was in a cam or crank journal but it makes more sense now it must have been the cylinder walls. I wasn’t expecting much but after plenty of careful back and forth movements (I treated it like a was cutting a thread) it finally fired up with no major issues
I'm a diesel tech and I work on heavy equipment. We have a small broderson crane my boss purchased from fpl that has one of these iron duke 4 cylinders in it but it has a drive by wire throttle body on it with port injection and a coil on plug ignition system. It runs good but I think she's gonna need a set of plugs soon.
Next thing Tony makes a boogie board out of a Valiant hood and a tow rope from some old jumper cables just in time for the family boat outing on Christmas morning! Hell yeah!!!!
Cannot overstate the importance of rotating a stuck engine BACKWARDS! Rust will form a ring where the rings meet the cylinder walls and form a "chock". Pulling the piston down below that really helps the penetrant work and soften that chock. I've freed MANY tractor engines by putting the transmission in high gear and tugging the tractor backwards slightly until it frees. Sometimes takes a few days but almost always works.
A Miata with a slant six, Harley Sportster, many cars and their related systems being tuned and prepped, and now a boat. Just looking at all the irons Uncle has in the fire makes me too tired to even move. I wonder if a Cessna is next. The man is a dynamo.
Airboat for the win...
VGG simply puts a pull handle on the harmonic balancer and rotates it in both directions until it fires up. Deisel fuel, WD, and rans fluid in the sparklators helps too.
Another great vidio.....thanks. You get a feel for these things when you work them slowly. Freeing rusted bolts or rusted anything else, and feeling the stretch in a bolt before it breaks....it's all about feel.
I like a dial torque wrench for that reason. When you slowly approach a torque spec and the bolt starts to stretch you know exactly how close it got. 2.2/2.5 mopar head bolts with the 1/4 turn after 65 ft lb revealed real problems with some after market head bolts using a dial wrench. Good bolts would finish up over 90 ft lbs. Going old school and doing a re-torque, they'd all start moving around 70 ft lbs. That seemed to solve my head gasket problems
@@anonmachina I have no experience with stainless but would definitely test one to see what it will take. You might want to check with someone that knows stainless as it doesn't all have have the same properties
My dad made a 3/4 inch steel plate drilled to match the head bolts on an old Case tractor. Put a fitting in the middle for an air chuck. Marvel Mystery oil over night and 120 psi no more stuck piston. Only works if the piston is up though
Hey Tony!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!
I knew I could find someone that can make a boat serviceable on the cheap :) Thank you for making such an awesome channel :)
I think P.B. blaster was the first consumer grade product to work. Marvel Mystery oil and other "penetrating oils" just didn't work that well. Uncle Tony was PB the first? I seem to recall it being called "nuts off" or some thing in the 90's
@Rich Rishel Right it had a not so nice name but worked great. anybody have a can, or picture?
This is fun. Watching Tony learn the hard way like so many of us out here that bought cheap boats is priceless. Keep digging Tone....;)
I used a mix Marvel Mystery Oil and WD 40 to winterize my engine. Never failed me.
@ 00:29 -- Remember, flux-core wirefed welding isn't MIG: you want to weld down-hand with one and fore-hand with the other...
Thanks Tony That's just what I thought of doing, including the PB blaster because HD didn't have any sea foam penetrating oil. I'll let you know.
Great bit of knowledge and worth it's weight in gold. A "Thunk" sign will be hanging in my shop.
With that extendo sump you might make a little more power too if you can maintain the same oil volume, and thus a lower oil level for extra low windage.
What great practical insight, this channel is pure gold.
Truly words to live by UT. Had an old Evinrude Mate from a family member, sat for 30 years at least and frozen solid.
all it took was 2 weeks, some marvel mystery oil, just enough force and a fresh set of rings and it runs like a champ.
Knew a guy who would buy locked up farm tractors. Filled the cylinders with kerosene and atf and walked away, left them in gear.
Whenever he was in that shed, just rocked the rear tires a few times.
Sometimes, they would sit soaking so long, he didn't even need to put rings in them, just sell a 0 effort running tractor.
Boat bust out another thousand ...me and boats dont mix you got more love for them than i ever will i do like watching those kids drag race in those tiny river boats with twin turbo mitsubishis and toyotas andvtge occasional turbo diesel now thats some funny stuff watching this piece of plywood that barely floats rip up a river with a kid wearing a great Gatsby t shirt 80s tennis shoes a pair of shorts and a pack of old gold s laying flat in a tiny river boat going 100mph up a river to a certain early death now that always entertains.
Acetone and Trans fluid works good too- I've used all these potions through the years and they all work well. The key is patience!
Definitely change the impeller. It is either cracking and about to fail or already falling apart. It will make the first day on the water a bad day if you don't.
First one I replaced was on a 3 year old boat. Ever since, I never run one more than two years old. Impossible to fix while on the water.
I also have it suck up some environmentally friendly antifreeze when I winterize the boat to protect the cooling system.
Air can get in from any open valve and cause rust . A few engine storage tricks: Slowly add some oil or ATF to the intake and hand turn the crank until you make 2 full rotations this will coat the valve surfaces with oil and prevent an open valve from rusting. NO AIR = NO RUST Plug and seal all air paths into the engine, intake, ex sys, AIR or other emissions. PCV systems, vented valve covers, vacuum lines, etc. Unload the valve springs by releasing the lash adjusters completely this helps the keep all the springs at the same tension and cuts off air flow to the top parts of all cylinders.
The 3.0 4 cylinder can also be found in forklifts / generators.
Dumb question. Could you put some white vinegar in the cylinder for a few days? Just a thought.
Automatic transmission fluid works good
Puddin’s Fab Shop uses vinegar for stuck engines with great success, and plenty of variety of oils, works well
Worked for me.
Ya, I've used the same along with a few others. Was just curious if he or anyone had ever tried vinegar
@@luke8210 I wouldn't suggest it. There is a very good chance some will get past the rings and be pumped throughout the oil system. I doubt you would ever get rid of all the acid.
I found if I'm going to store any engine what I do is I pull out spark plugs fill all the cylinders with transmission fluid and put spark plugs back in keeps cylinder from getting rusty
Plenty of vehicles on Marketplace that say "Wont start, just clicks. May need starter & battery which is code for - "motor is locked up"
Neon green engine. Just like if it was a model drag car being put together by a kid in the 60's.
I worked my way through an apprenticeship with two kids and a wife at home by freeing up Mercruisers, mostly the 4 cylinders. They were all run in salt water and had no freshwater cooling. After sitting for a couple of months, many of them were stuck. After trying the rocking method, I pulled a head and to my surprise the cylinders were not rusted. After a lot of head scratching, I figured out the rings were jammed into the cylinder by corrosion behind them. Couldn't think of what to do, so I built a fire in each cylinder, one by one. Used kerosene and transmission fluid. every hour or so I'd rock the engine and check that piston, if I got any hint of movement I'd move onto the next cylinder. It was slow, but it worked, never had any problems with the engines one they were freed up and running. I guess once running, the engine broke up any remaining junk behind the rings. These boats were many years old, for the most part, and the owners weren't going to put out the money for rebuilds to a shop, that's how they ended up with me.
Can you put a baffle at the back of the deepest part of the sump to keep it from running up and out under hard acceleration?
How do you get the pb blaster out of the cylinder once it’s broke free ? Or is it not harmful to leave in In ?
You pull your engine oil drain plug and pull all your spark plugs out. You are removing the PB blaster that seeped past the piston rings into the crankcase and while the engine is turning over, the pistons are spitting the PB blaster out the spark plug holes, so your engine will be all cleaned out.
Thank you Uncle Tony! I got my 302 freed. It felt awesome! I really appreciate you.
Wow crazy i just got done freeing a stuck motor in my old truck it sat for a year with open exhaust ports
As odd as it looks, the lime green block is cool...but only on a Chrysler. That was creative 👌.
I got an old John Deere MT that flash rust on the cylinder walls sticking the engine. I used a bit of vinegar to free it before pulling the pistons. Glad I did, the rings were shot and the main bearings and crank journals has a grove in them that ain't supposed to be there. Now I'm just trying to figure out how pine straw got in the cylinders when it was setting far away from any pine trees.
Those 3.0s airlock something fierce in the cooling system when you refill them.
Drain 3 gallons and only 2 wanna go back in.
Guaranteed it'll give ya hell, every one I've worked on has.
At least that's how they are in generator sets.
Gotta do the old school trick of a bleed hole in the thermostat.
There is nothing to fill on that mercruiser, it gets its cooling water from the same body of water the boat is in. The water is drawn in by a pump that uses a rubber impeller at the bottom of the outdrive and exits out the exhaust in the center of the propeller.
I never had that problem, my marine engine had (just like Tony’s) 2 water pumps that tend to work very well.
@@The_Impulse and most lakes have plenty of water to cool the engine.
@@davidleonard8369 that they do. It’s still very similar to a generator in that it is a pressurized cooling system even tho it’s not a closed system. The engine still runs at 180 depending on the thermostat.
@@The_Impulse not trying to be a d##k but you lost me on the mercruiser having a pressurized cooling system. No radiator or heat exchanger and no pressure cap. Technically it's an open total loss system. When the water in the engine gets up to temperature the thermostat opens and allows fresh water in and the hot water is expelled out the exhaust. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, as I have been incorrect many times in my life.
Thanks Tony. I'll try that in this super stuck V6.
- Looks like a fun shop over there!
I have heard that gasoline boat engines need "Fogging oil." It's an oil that is sprayed down the intake so it sticks to the bore and rings. It keeps water out. I don't know what you could use for a diesel.
I like that endoscope cameras are affordable. They do an even better job of telling you what is happening inside the engine.
Good luck on a timely repair.
How to launch a boat Christmas morning in northern Minnesota.
Hook boat trailer to pickup, grab the chainsaw, plus several cases of Busch Light, drive out onto the lake, drink some beers, cut big hole in ice, drink more beers, drop boat in hole, drink more beers and figure out how to get boat back on the trailer.
Thank you. PB Blaster? excellent suggestion. I will try it on my 1985 Ford that has been sitting for about 8 years (just to make sure is lubricated, too)
Good explaination. I have used diesel, kero, marvel, any penatrating oil not solvant. Just to loosen the rings from the lands.
On boats , this is commonly linked to bad throttle plate bushings (moisture path started there) and the gasket missing from the flame arrestor at upper lock nut.pull the plugs quickly if it's a vortec motor , or you may snap a chunk of block off at the starter mount pad.
Water leaked through engine cover , probably no plastic under the vinyl. Pooled in the throttle plate made it's way into intake (the Weber-Carter afb sieze first) then unlucky cylinder. The valve guide takes a beating too.
Watch Out!!!!
I bought a cabin cruiser with volvo penta 5.7L that looked like New! It was suposed to have only water rust just like that one!. I tried auto trans. Fluid with acetone, diesel, wd 40, name it. So i left diesel for a while and when i actually free it a bit, I did all Uncle Tony did. I was just about to start it and find out the "block was crack" between cylinder 3 and 5. High enough that it didnt leak oil. Water was lefted in and froze. There's a lot of stuff around that i coulnt see it before i filled water to start. The engine is 3 feet deep in 27' boat and it was very hard to see. I learned to Fill with water before you spend hours of sweat. Youll see the color of residu coming out other end.
Boat = Bust Out Another Thousand. Unless you're Uncle Tony. Then it's Bust Out Another Trick.
Love all the tips and tricks. You might consider getting a borescope. It would save alot of guessing and alot of pulling heads. I have a few older optical Olympus', but the newer webcam styles can be had for peanuts.
"So, we took it out to the dragstrip last night and it was running really good...
Until the bottom of our pan blew off and sprayed two gallons of oil all over the track."
Sieze the moment!
UN-seize the moment*
BIG big big hint on the wiring, skin a couple of the wires in the middle of the harness and make sure the wires are not green or white, ( should obviously be copper), if they are g or w, it will run great on out of water but not at all on the water. It's a very common problem on all water vessels no matter their size. There's been a lot of them scrapped because of it.
On the seized engines, My Dad and I used trans-fluid and a big honking screw driver or pry bar on the flexplate/flywheel depending on std. or auto, with a pull handle on the front of the crank, me at the back under the car because I was younger he would always say, (after removing the starter of course) and him on the front, sometimes it took only a couple of minutes but some of them took hours to get freed up. Diesel works too but you have to flush it out a lot after freeing it up or it will immediately foul out your new set of plugs 3 or 4 times before it will start and run. We learned that 1 the hard way 😶 but carb cleaner fixes that problem easily.
Great job getting it turning Uncle Tony, BUY GOOD PAIR OF PADDLES, and a trolling motor with an extra battery, paddling SUCKS😏. NEW FEUL PUMP AND WATER IMPELLER IN THE FOOT also check the gear lube in the foot too.
He had me at PB Blaster
MMO in the cylinders and a heater on the block to get it warm..worked for me
How many seconds of spray per cylinder do you suggest for Lubrication of cylinder walls? Good Video.
I had a boat I bought “locked up” was a 3.0 merc. The starter was so full of rust it wasn’t allowing the flywheel to spin even with a wrench on the crank. Pulled out the starter and it spun free
I would do a compression test just to make sure there is no problem in that cylinder
Nice work on the Slant oil pan......Great Channel!
That is a beautiful flux core bead.....I wish I could lay em out like that!!!
Thanks Uncle Tony for showing your subscribers on how to save money in that situation. "See you Tomorrow "
See you tomorrow!
Great video work Uncle Kathy!
I got really lucky , Had a 96 Corvette convertible with a frozen engine that I bought for $500 in absolutely amazing condition with only 60k miles , took out the spark plugs & pumped diesel fuel into thecylinders with a transfer pump, Let it sit for 1 week & fully charged the battery, It slowly Unseized itself everytime I tried to start it I saw the drive belt move a tiny bit , After about 10 times it finally broke loose completely & now the car is back running, Sold the car a month later on eBay for $8,600
My wife's cousin had a 4 banger inboard that went bad. We have a Merc outboard and I always bomb the cylinders (all 3) with fogging oil for over the cold Wisconsin winter. Would you ever look into the cykinders with a borescope?
Rubber tipped air nozzle in a spark plug hole:
Thought it would push ATF past the rings, instead it spun the motor.
Just as long as you don't try to retrofit a car radiator and get the headers glowing cherry red like the 'great kills harbor' incident Alpha!
Same process but I use atf and acetone mixed 50/50. I'm yet to fine s better penatrating lubricant
You just saved my hide, man. Just got a little 4cyl isuzu motor to turn! 😍 thanks a ton!
Are you putting the fluid in the spark plugholes? would white vinigar work , coudl you put ih in the cylindar head and manually move backand forther, also woudl it be worth draining the oil out first?
Change the impeller first thing Tony. On the great lakes here. Any questions don't be afraid to ask. Boats have their nuances
I love the green it's soo obnoxiously green.