Horribly seized engines!

[manorfolk]

Hello everyone. Finally started work on my two 1952 Javs over the last two weeks, starting with the one with generally an excellent body, wings and doors and surprisingly excellent chassis, apart from sills, outriggers and footwell. Delighted to have new sills from the shop delivered Thursday although IMHO they'd be improved with an increased slope from the upstand to the horizontal step, at present 90' but perhaps better at 115'. I can only judge from the existing sills (which will already have been replaced in the past) but would have saved me a lot of hassle! Anyone agree?

My biggest worry is that I bought them (from Holland) with one running engine and two stripped but apparently complete. These two have all the steel surfaces covered in rust. One has the con rods and pistons out of the liners but the little ends almost welded to the gudgeon pins - no movement at all; the other has the liners out but still has the pistons and rods inside with the rings virtually welded to the liners. So my question to all you experts is can any of these be salvaged, and if so with what? Years ago I bought a job lot of scaffold clips, also totally rusted up. The seller said just to sling them in a bucket of diesel and they'll come out like new! Err, no! After 6 weeks I bit the bullet and bought some more. So what to try? Got a gallon can of WD40 but I'm told there are better products out there. Or should I send the lot off to an engine expert? Again, anyone recommended? (On a pension, so pockets not too deep!)

Hope to meet some of you at the show - but how to recognise Jowett owners? And can't the Club do some sort of deal on bulk ticket buying? Not very impressed with the special ticket price for pensioners!

Best - Tony Belcher

[Keith Clements]

There is a special ticket price for the club . See the club mag. I think it is also in the Club album here. I will link later.

[manorfolk]

Thank you, Keith. Don't know how I missed that!
No suggestions about the engines then?

[David Kemp]

Buy some molasses of a pet store or farm supply, dilute it with water approx 10 to 1 , throw all your parts in for between a week to two weeks,
Then hose off & clean. It does wonders & is cheap. I use it for all rusty steel. Check how it works on "jupiter restoration".
I was about to do the same as you , try to make one good engine out of multiple rusty ones ,when I did my back in. now I am working on all the light parts.

[manorfolk]

Thanks David: I'll give it a go tomorrow!

[Keith Clements]

Molasses requires at least 20Deg C to work so a thermostatic beer/wine fermentation heater is good. You do need to check every week to see if rust has gone. Not sure how it reacts with other metals in the engine. I would also take off all nuts and bolts I could find. Heat to about 180C in an oven may also help.
Make some proper pullers for the liners and head. Do a search on JT and JG for all these subjects they have been discussed before.

[manorfolk]

Appreciate the advice about removing nuts and bolts, Keith, but this rust is pretty substantial! Also, as an update I thought I would just try the WD40 after all. Good total immersion for about an hour then first rod in the vice with the web sitting on the base of the vice to avoid any distortion and a few gentle taps ( yes, really gentle!) on the head of the piston (angled against the rod) and just a fraction of movement! Sure enough, another drenching and more tapping and the first one is now free enough to move by hand. Result! They are marked as STD so perhaps the liners are replacements too.