Thanks to Willie for posting the year date of the 5R D6 I just bought. Short of pulling the head and pan to remove frozen pistons, anyone have any ideas for freeing up a frozen engine. I tried Kano on a earlier locked up engine and didn't have any success with it until I pulled the pan and extracted the frozen pistons one at a time. This machine has the 4600 engine. I see from different threads that sleeves and pistions are getting hard to find so I would like to use the ones in the machine if possible. Previous owner said new sleeves and pistons has been installed before the machine was parked?? I bought 4 from Regal for a 4400 engine about a year ago, athough I haven't checked with them yet for availability. This machine has set for a long time, so I'm thinking it might be best to pull the head and pan just to check things out. Ideas?????????

Missing a hood, grill and one bottom roller I have found so far. Think it should be a good restore project.

Yup, I'd sure go ahead and drop the pan and pull the head if it sat for a long time just to be sure. The rings could just be rusted up a bit or it could be worse, depending on how much moisture got in there. This way you can be sure what happened.

Per previous post by KidNV liners are still available from Regal.....cheap to...about $24 ea. if I recall right. Don't know about pistons. It's the bearings that are getting hard to find....so try to salvage if you can.

Are the Regal cylinder liners as good as original CAT liners?

BBOAZ,

What's the serial number of your 5R (mine's 544)?

Can anyone identify the manufacturer of the blade on this tractor?

Hi David,
Looks to be a LaPlant-Choate like the attached picture.

CAT 60

Serial Number is 5R3408SP I think it is a 1945 model.

The Auto Patrol I own and just freed up had been sitting for 20-30 years. No direct water to the cylinders that I could see but plenty of opportunity for our high humidity air to rust the cylinders.

For four months, used Kroll, PB Blaster, Penetrant and heat on the outside of the cylinders to loosen them up. 3 of them loosened up right away. The worst refused to be pursuaded.

Pulled the cylinder head and it was about 2 inches down the cylinder. I filled the cylinder up with the above slurry and set it on fire. It burned for 10 minutes, I tapped the outside of the cylinder with a hammer, then burned for another 10, repeat once more. Once the cylinder had all the fluid burned out I found bugs, rust, grime in between the piston and ring land. It was very unlikely the pentrant was able to get down to the rings (now, or ever).

I took a razor blade and carefully got the grime out and trimmed off the rust. I then used a small torch to heat the crevice between the piston and wall and then sprayed PB Blaster in to "shock it".

Did this for an hour. Then grabbed the fan and wiggled back and forth. Little by little coming free. Shocked her again. Full rotation with no apparent liner damage within another hour.

Hope it works for you!

Forcus,
An intresting story of presistance and patience. I am glad to see someone have good luck with stuck engines. It is intresting that applying heat to frozen pistons has been mentioned quite a bit lately as a method of freeing stuck engines. As per advise from some of the senior members of this forum after removing the pan (seems like I drained about 40 gallons of oil and water mixture out of the motor) and the head, I found 2 bent rods, so I pushed the liners and pistons out together and used a 20 ton press to push the pistons out of the liners The rust had pitted the liners where the rings made contact with the liners to a point they were unservicable. One piston had gotten hot, and the snap riings holding the piston pin in place were gone. The pin had scored the liner where it was rubbing against the liner. The piston had gotten so hot parts of it were melted away around the piston pin. Found new liners and one new piston from the local cat dealer. Used the new piston to evaluate the wear on the other 5 pistons (after recieving some excellent information from this forum on piston wear) and made the determination they were in almost new condition. Pushing them out with the press didn't hurt them. Bearings have checked out to be reusable, and two used connecting rods from gemdozer and this motor is about ready to go back together after some more cleaning. That's what I did for a stuck engine. Next time I will use the" FIRE IN THE HOLE" method.

bboaz