Help for seized engine

I’m new here. Nice to meet you.
My S Type has been sat for a little while and the engine has now seized solid.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to free it up?
Thanks.

It’s probably the rings rusted in the bores, plugs out and pour some ATF down and leave for a few days, then try to turn the engine from the crankshaft bolt.

Boiling Oil is good too !

When free, you should disassemble the complete engine.
As probably the oil galleries are blocked too.
The damage would be extensive, if you startup the freed engine like that.

Regards,
Peter Jan

It always seemed odd to me hearing the suggestion of pouring stuff into the cylinders to break stuck rings loose. If it built up a rust ridge big enough to lock up engine, I certainly wouldn’t want the rings to do the job of cleaning it out by self honing at a couple thousand rpm. I’d pull the head and find out what’s really going on in there first. Broken rings or ring lands can destroy an otherwise good bore fast.

I had a completely seized Kawasaki KZ1300 six cylinder which eventually I got free by pouring diesel in the bores after taking the head off. It took a good month of soaking and then a wooden mallet to free the block but became apparent the liners and rings had completely rusted solid.

New block, new rings… good as new.

Marvel mystery oil and atf in every cylinder and you can try to gently bump the car back and forth when it is in gear after a week of soaking. These engines are pretty tough, but you’ll have to prolly do a rebuild in the future. Might as well give it a try and it could just be a little bit of rust. Best of luck.

Gerard

I’m interested in what exactly you would do after you removed the head?

Just saw a tip on YouTube about a 50/50 mix of atf and acetone as a fantastic rust penetrate. This CANNOT be stored in plastic, must use a metal container and gently shaken before each use.

Gerard

I would of course locate the rust assuming all the cylinders are not rusted. A seeping head gasket or possible crack in something could be the culprit, so I’d look for that. I don’t know how long this engine has been sitting or in what climate conditions. Any garage should offer some protection from condensation so it would have to be sitting for quite a while for cylinders to rust merely because of condensation in the air. Condensation in the air would cause surface rust over a larger area. A leaking gasket or crack would cause a small puddle in a cylinder resulting in a hefty ridge right where the piston top meets the bore. In any case I’d rather clean out by hand what I could instead of letting the rings scrape off a layer of rust or worse a ridge. If a ridge is present or just cleaning surface rust, you would be able to rotate, once broke free, the crank in the needed direction to back the piston away from the rust ridge instead of forcing the rings over the rust by letting the starter do the work. All kinds of variables at play here but considering how much it costs to rebuild an engine, I think it’s wise to pull the head. If we’re talking beaters that we don’t care about, then I’d go the quick and dirty method. I assume that’s not the case here.