1986 Austin Montego 1.6HL (C418 YRW)

[ayrshirelad32]

How did you get on with the engine any luck in unseizing it? Sounds as if it was laid up with a engine problem if it is that seized.

[Austin-Rover]

It's still siezed. I've left it soaking with diesel and will have another try with it this weekend.

[Austin-Rover]

Still no joy with getting the engine to move. It's stuck solid.

Thankfully, I've sourced a mega, mega low mileage engine to replace it with. I made a start stripping the engine bay down today. This involved lots of choice words and grazed knuckles from the very rusty hose clips that didn't want to come without a fight!

Interestingly, the thermostat housing was thick with powdery aluminium oxide dust and the stubs on the manifolds for the hoses snapped clean off (saved undoing the jubilee clips! ) This makes me think that getting this engine running (even if it did free off) would have ended in failure at some point anyway.

[Austin-Rover]

The old engine is coming slowly. It refuses to leave the engine bay without a fight.

I wrestled with the drive shaft nuts today. They were defeated eventually with much grazing of knuckles and swearing. I even defeated the lone comedy nut that had an imperial head, different to the other seventeen I'd just undone...

Only the three nuts for the down pipe (They'll be fun!) and the engine mountings left!

[Austin-Rover]

The last weekend in June saw the old engine finally extracted from the engine bay. The exhaust had to be cut up and removed in a few chunks as none of the nuts or clamps were interested in opening. I've a brand new full system coming for £60 to fit once the replacement engine is in.

The replacement engine is now ready to install hopefully this coming weekend.

[Simon]

Am I the only one who loves S-Series engines!

[normanmg2000]

s seies engine

NO, me as well.

[Colonel Bogey]

Me too :-)

[G51 NAV]

Fantastic reading this, well done Rich.

[normanmg2000]

s series

Are you back in the land of the living now john?

[Oli]

You have been busy

Great work Rich

[G51 NAV]

Are you back in the land of the living now john?

I've lurked for ages. No Maestro on the road atm, and I don't have much technical knowledge, so I've had very little to contribute. I logged in again the other day to post a query about fixing review-view mirrors to Maestro windscreens and figured I'd catch up on a few unread posts.

[Oli]

Nice to see you back John, hope the rest of the family are well also.

[G51 NAV]

review-view

lol of course that should have said 'rear view mirrors' but bizarrely the forum wouldn't let me edit my post. Has the feature been removed while I was away? No great shakes if it has I guess.

[G51 NAV]

Thanks Oli, yes we are all well.