Oshkosh Snow plow W/ frozen motor

[saddamsnightmare]

December 26th, 2011.

BBoomerBootCamp:

I took a very long stuck 1927 Model T Ford engine (head was off, pan was off, laying under a porch open to the elementts and resurrected it with ATF and lightly tapping a 4X4 (oak) on the pistons for about two weeks. I also soaked the rod and main bearings with the ATF every day. When the engine finally broke loose, I tore it apart, replaced the rear thrust bearing (3rd main cap on the engine, honed out the cyclinders, fitted new rings, and replaced whatever parts had been cannibalized (valves and valve springs-mostly). Put the engine back togather, it ran on the first try, and is running still. I was lucky, the engine only had about 5,000 original miles as it had been a firetruck engine.

Good luck, the basic principles work, just use time and not too much force to break the engine loose.

 

[Sephirothq]

Be careful on the top end. If you have a valve stuck you will end up bending push rods, or having a piston hit a valve that is stuck down. I damaged a ford 272 but getting a stuck engine to turn even with the very slow a cautious method. The engine can be fixed with push rods and a new valve but now i have to tear it down. so be careful make sure your top end is working first.

 

[Atwater]

i think the bore-scope idea is good.
if you can see that the bores are rusty no sense in soaking, make plans for a tear down

 

[dburt]

I was at Alex's Idaho Motor Pool today looking your BIG truck over! I like big machines, and big trucks and yours is indeed a very big truck!! And of course I was drawn to your engine, the hood side curtains are off and you can see the engine from both sides quite well. I could tell something was going on with the engine as the spark plug wires are off, and I suspected that it had to do with soaking the engine to free it up. That is one very big engine- I hope he can get it freed up. I have a place down highway 95 about 12 miles from Alex, and I thought how good your truck would look sitting in my back pasture! (LOL) It is so big and impressive it would surely put fear and awe into anyone driving by! Let's hope that it is just some surface rust issues, and it will break free soon!
I have used Marvel and ATF to break engines loose over the years, but nothing beats a good soaking and some time. And that's hard when you are in a hurry.
BTW, I hope you are good friends with the Arabs 'cuz you will need a very deep pocket to feed fuel to that engine or a very big discount on gas prices!

 

[BBoomerBootCamp]

No Arab friends yet! dburt if you get back that way would you shot some pictures and post them for me, I have yet to see the little fella, I'm sure the boyz on SS would enjoy some as well. I am awaiting word back from Alex on the trucks condition, remaining hopeful
Just visit it every so often and make sure its feeling loved p.i.m.p. (replaces lol with laughing so hard "I pissed my pants")

 

[augiedoggy]

Hey BBoomer I just found out you and I have a person in common.....
Your neighbor is Stan Kingman, and he says you have a lot of Cool stuff!
Good luck on your monster Oshkosh

 

[BBoomerBootCamp]

Stans on my short list of people I call a good friend

 

[dburt]

Boomer, I'll get back up there this coming week and get some pics and post them. How were you going to get it down to Az? It must weigh 35,000+ lbs. It's what is called a very 'manly' truck!!

 

[waayfast]

Shawn and I had to go to Ontario last week for some building materials at Homey Dope-o(bath room remodel--I guess it's time when your feet go thru the bottom of the cheapo plastic tub!)

Since we were so close, we stopped by Alex' place to get an eyeball on the Oshkosh.

FREAKING HUGE!!

Had I known you hadn't yet seen your "mail-order bride" we would have took some pics

Hopefully Dburt will get a chance to venture up that way and get some pics for you and post them on here for everyone's enjoyment. OH! and did I mention,
IT"S FREAKIN' HUGE!!

Jim and Shawn

 

[dburt]

Here are some pics of Big Bertha! I swear the engine is over 5 feet long just by it's little self! The tires are about 4.5 feet tall. I bet she gets all of 1 gallon per mile for mileage. Just out of sight to her left is an 813 5-Ton Cab-Chassis that looks like a little toy parked next to Bertha. The plow is resting up in the dump box, and notice the nifty grader blade under the truck that can rotate, pivot, and flip up out of the way if needed. It has more levers and handles in the cab then a person would know what to do with. What a toy!

 

[Heath_h49008]

Wow.... That is one monster of a truck!

She looks great!

 

[BBoomerBootCamp]

dburt, thanks so much for posting the pictures I only hope I can have success with the motor so I can enjoy the fuel economy p.i.m.p. (laughing so hard I "pissed in my pants) sorry not going to use lol. It looks impressively over sized, weighs in at 35k, stands over 10' tall. Should push a little snow too!!

 

[Barron]

There's one similar to that sitting at the Airport at Livingston, MT. I think they still plow snow off the runways with it.

 

[dburt]

Alex said the other day that the next step is to pull the pan and try gentle persuasion with a hydraulic jack against one of the crank throws. With so much surface area between the big pistons and the cylinder walls, even a little bit of surface rust can make the starter a non-starter.

 

[BBoomerBootCamp]

I hope Alex is right, there's been so many good post on this trucks motor issues one of them is got to do the trick. The worst thing that could happen is that it's beyond help and will have to be parted out.

 

[plym49]

Looking at the photos, I can't imagine that you will not be able to get that motor free. It's not like it has been sitting in the rain with the top end open. And the spark plugs make it easy to get inside to squirt your witches' brew.

A good mixture of solvent, maybe some heat from a blast heater, plus the other tricks listed and it will be turning over.

 

[Nonotagain]

A friend is doing a 69 Chevelle restoration from the ground up.

The motor would rotate around 240 degrees then stop.

A few weeks of various penetrating liquids, he finally decided to pull the heads for a look-see.

All that was found was a little crud in the top of one cylinder. A blast of shop air and the engine rotated freely.

Have the head pulled.

 

[quickfarms]

nice little truck

 

[JimM37]

Here's a couple more that Alex sent me for my book.
Good luck Boomer.
Jim

 

[Heath_h49008]

I'm trying to picture what that blade looks like mounted...