I found this in the woods up the street from my house, flip it over and scrape off the rust and crap on the deck and guess what..its a 198.

It looks like its been there for years, has a points dist and a Mopar oil filter. The oil pan is rusted out with holes along with the freeze plugs. Do you think the rods have a chance of being good? It was full of water and has wildlife living in it...

Hi cralt how have you been. Thats neet to find a 198 in the woods I once found a drivers side of a model A in the woods a friend of mine put it together and sold it.


melam@nxs.net

Doesnt look good... A friend of mine saved a 455 that was sitting in a mudd puddle on its side for who knows how long..but that 455 didnt have something living in it.

oh well..

Those rods are what you are after and they may be reconditionable, question is if this engine will come apart.

Getting rusted piston assemblies out of rusted bores can be a real challenge. Best to hoes off all the big chunks and "critters" the set the bores up where they will hold an acid solution. Let the acid do it's work for a few days then see if you can bash-out the piston / rod assemblies.
Use a long bar and hit the underside of the pistons, don't bang on the rods.

Good luck!
DD

Thats the plan doc, I hoesed out the small rain forest that was going on in there and I poured some cokeacola (hey i heard it works) in one to see what happens. Ill see if i can find some acid though. Im going to try and use some fancy sizzle wrench work and finish it off with a cold chisel and BFH..

Do you think it would be easyer/safer to try and split the block down the center of each cyl with a torch or bust the pistons? Ive never tryed to cut anything cast iorn this thick be4..

The Coke trick works off the acid in the drink but to speed-up things go get some swimming pool acid or "metal prep" etching solution, even battery acid will do =:-0

After a long - hot summer's soak,(leave it out in the hot sun) have at it with the BFH and add heat as needed.
DD

I have used the Coke/Pepsi trick and it DOES work. I had a frozen motor and had worked on it for hours and only got the crank to turn about 1/4", then nothing. So I filled the bores with Pepsi (any carbonated drink will work, you are using the carbonic acid) and waited about 10 minutes. I hit the key again and and got it to turn another 1/4". So I drained the Pepsi out, refilled the bores and waited another 10 munites. When I hit the key it broke loose! I understand from a chemist that the aluminum builds up aluminum oxide between the piston and the cylinder. The carbonic acid mixes with the oxide and breaks it down.

Chuck


webmaster@omnipages.com

Don’t use water to clean the swimming pool acid out when you are done.

That doesn't sound right but if you add the water to the acid, it will create a chemical reaction and cause an explosion. And nobody likes exploding acid.

Always add acid to water, never water to acid.

The main thing is, be careful. Read the bottle and good luck.

John


Killin5@yahoo.com

Cheaper than the "metal prep" is Phosphoric or Muriatic Acid from the hardware store. The Muriatic acid is more agressive than Phosphoric, it did a great job on removing the rust from my headers before painting.


Hot-Rod 6
dave.clement@motorola.com

One blip with an air chisel and the pistons will crumble into nice little chunks. Position the blade parallel to the wrist pin and off center. Bust the main caps loose and pull the whole mess out. Soak it in a caustic hot tank (call around, older machine shops still have hot tanks). Once it's cleaned-up you can finish the disassembly.

I've pulled down several engines this way. Worst we ever did was whack a wrist pin once.

Gilly

tlg225ccr@aol.com

My understanding of this trick -- which I have also used with success -- is that you are using the *phosphoric* acid present in Coca-Cola (and somewhat less so in Pepsi). The Carbonic acid is really, really weak; the Phosphoric acid is quite strong. So I don't think e.g. 7-Up or Sprite would work...
...but I never tried it so I could be wrong.

DS

redbear@vrx.net

Could be. My chemist friend mentioned carbonic and said that it is weak and dissapates quickly, and that made sense to me. Maybe he didn't know about the phosphoric. It doesn't seem to take much acid to do the work, so I never tried stronger stuff. (I think my engine sat for a year with water in the cylinders.)

Chuck



webmaster@omnipages.com