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Chuxwagon is down for the count


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update: I've pretty much given up, the car will be towed to my parents place, where it'll rest until summer, when I can do some serious work on it.

 

OK, I'm up at the MNSubaru ice race event in the middle of F&*#'en nowhere northern minnesota with a basic tool set and a seized motor.

 

I've got a small oil leak, and a non-functional oil gage and/or sender....

 

I was running the circle track, @ about 45 mph (155/60R13 snow tires....mmmmm) for a few laps (probably 10 minutes or so) when I start hearing the TOD, so i head in, check the oil, add a quart and a half (which brought me right up to full), start it up again, let it run for a couple minutes, the noise goes away...this has happened before. then I drive back out on the lake, get about 75-100 feet out on the first straight, and the engine dies, period. and WILL NOT turn over. I've taken off all the belts and everything spins fine except the crank...

 

I found that my passenger side PCV hose had come off the valve cover.....could've gotten something in there

 

also, someone was suggesting that with the oil a bit low, and me running circles in the same way for awhile, maybe I got oil starve from one side of the motor....

 

my options are few, and parts are virtually non-existent....so I need a ghetto fix that'll get me back to Duluth....

 

Anyone?? ideas????

 

also, I have very limited access to the internet, so if you've got ANY idea....please post it, tell me ALL the alternatives, so I can try everything...

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Don't know if this will help but one time i had an old buick and got stuck in the snow at an extream grade tried to power my way out and cooked some bearings because of lack of oil to pump. One twisted around so i dropped the pan put new one in and it ran again but had nasty knock. Hope this didnt happen to you. icon9.gif

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swap motor for a junkyard one that turns over? it just quit running? one of my friends had an older fiat and it threw a rod and it just seized up, said it started ticking a few minutes earlier and then it just stopped and wouldnt budge. hope thats not the case.

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The starter is fully disengaged right? Might drop the starter and try turning the crank with a rachet, spark plugs out of course. This will rule out hydro lock and starter.

Still stuck? Pull the timing belts and try rotating the cams to see if the valvetrain is seized.

 

I wouldn't go dumping anything into the engine besides oil at this point. That's what you would do if the engine sat for a long time (years) and froze up. You might want to drain the oil and check for signs of bearing material. If you have rozen bearings and you free it up, things will most likely just more expensive.

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Put it in first and have someone drag the car backwards and drop the clutch in 4 high in 5th gear. You might be able to pop it loose. Usually when an engine siezes, it takes more and more to keep it going, then it locks up, not just pow and stopped. good luck. It usually takes a lot to kill these engines.

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I had an AMC Spirit sieze up on me from lack of oil. Pulled to may G's in a dip and bottomed out. Didn't think much of it until the oil light started flickering and as we were in a remote area in Utah I drove it till it siezed(About 2 miles). Hitch hiked back to town and got my friends truck to pull it home if we couldn't get if started. Filled with oil and still it wouldn't turn over. So we pulled it and after several bumps from the clutch in a higher gear it started tuning over again. Ended up driving it home (30 miles) before it ran out of oil again. Never did sound or preform so good after that. Some one else mentioned pulling and bumping the clutch, I recomend the same if your not worried about damage to the motor. I would suggest 3 gear as the lower ones just left the back wheels slide for me. Stumpy

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well....I've essentially given up, I got a ride home and left it there, I'll go back with a trailer later

 

yes, I took off the timing belts and the cams and oil pump spin normally, aswell as alternator, PS pump, Water pump, tensioners and idlers (both new)....(no A/C)

 

not the starter, it already has some trouble engaging, and it did that again a couple times, I could hear it spin, then tried it again, it engaged, and would NOT turn over. I put a little extra oil in it, and left it overnight, then put on a battery charger to boost the starter a bit, hoping it would get it unstuck....also put an impact wrench on the oil pump bolt and spun that for awhile, hoping it would circulate some oil.....

 

yea, we pulled it off the lake with a full size truck, I put it in 1lo and eased off the clutch just to see if it would help, and it locked up all 4 wheels (on snow)

 

maybe we'll try pulling it backwards.....

 

but at this point, I think the chuxwagon is done until my mom decides that she's done with her legacy and I'm away from school long enough to do the swap :(

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well....I've essentially given up, I got a ride home and left it there, I'll go back with a trailer later

 

yes, I took off the timing belts and the cams and oil pump spin normally, aswell as alternator, PS pump, Water pump, tensioners and idlers (both new)....(no A/C)

 

not the starter, it already has some trouble engaging, and it did that again a couple times, I could hear it spin, then tried it again, it engaged, and would NOT turn over. I put a little extra oil in it, and left it overnight, then put on a battery charger to boost the starter a bit, hoping it would get it unstuck....also put an impact wrench on the oil pump bolt and spun that for awhile, hoping it would circulate some oil.....

 

yea, we pulled it off the lake with a full size truck, I put it in 1lo and eased off the clutch just to see if it would help, and it locked up all 4 wheels (on snow)

 

maybe we'll try pulling it backwards.....

 

but at this point, I think the chuxwagon is done until my mom decides that she's done with her legacy and I'm away from school long enough to do the swap :(

 

well its too late to try it now, but in 1lo the gear ratio is too steep to move the engine like that, you need to do it in 4hi or 5hi in 4wd.

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I've seen the oil pressure drop when doing extended donuts but never below 10 psi. There are some baffles in the oil pan tho not many. Good luck.

 

Yea I run usually 30 laps straight on our ice track and I havent had any problems with total lack of oil pressure

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Yea I run usually 30 laps straight on our ice track and I havent had any problems with total lack of oil pressure

 

I assume you both weren't low on oil at the time....I wonder if that, combined with the fact that I was low did it in

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Did you try pulling the car backwards? with it in a forwards gear? What you want to try to do is spint he engine reverse rotation, with enough torque to bust it free. So you want 5th gear to get the torque on the crank, and 4wd to get the traction, and a pickup to pull the car backwards. Find a nice quiet section of dry pavement. Pull the plugs out to help anything clear. Get going as fast as you dare and dump the clutch. In 5th, going backwards. It's your only chance short of pulling the engine and spliting the block.

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no we didn't get to try that, I left the car up there.

 

couple problems with it though.....I don't dare take the plugs out since there are very large quantities of mud caked around them.....also, it's about 20 miles to the nearest dry pavement....

 

I'm just going to park it until summer

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i bet the tick of death, was actualy a rod nock. motors dont tend to sieze up unless they are runinng on half a quart, from the cars i've seen blown up by people. one girlfriend of mine ran it out of oil, siezed the rings is what i thought. we squirted penetrating lube in the spark plugs then pulled it around, it actualy worked, and ran that way till she blew a head gasket.

 

either way broken rod, or siezed piston, id want another motor.

 

sucks to hear, wish my brown hatch was up and runing for some ice races, or the snow rodeo.

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Right after you got the headlight fixed two Damn....

 

yea....it was a good headlight though, the 2 laps we did on the course, and all the drifting was at night, and that thing worked soooo much better than the old one with all the mud in it....

 

but yea, I've had the engine get a little noisy, and put 3 quarts in it before (oops.....only once, I sware!!). So the fact that it was only 1 quart or so low makes me suspect it was another problem.

 

so now I'll spend some time getting my loyale up and running as a daily driver, and then I can put ~3 weeks into the EJ22 rebuild/swap, and fixing a few other problems with the car....

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