Seized engine after lengthy storage

Hi everyone again, been a while since I was found in a new post. Want to thank everyone who has helped me in the past.

Well I still have my 1980 1000 MKII and finally got it back this summer after it had been in storage with my ex wife.

I had to leave the bike rather abruptly and when I got it back two years later I saw to my horror that it had been standing without the sparkplugs in, don't know if it was me or someone else who left it like that but that is beside the point. The bike had stood outside for some weeks and then was stored in an unheated barn for the rest of the time.

Now I finally have a nice old barn for my bikes and plenty of space to work on them with a nice work area set up so yesterday I decided to dwelve into the bike.

The engine won't turn, neither with the starter motor nor the crank shaft bolt. Not totally surprised but wanted your opinion on how to continue.

All the best.

Baldur

Post edited by: Baldur, at: 2006/10/03 07:33

maybe squirt some liquid wrench or something like it in each cylinder, wait awhile before turning the crankshaft,your cylinders are prolly full of rust/corrosion above each piston, you might get lucky and not havta hone the cylinders and replace the rings but i doubt it. then theirs the valvetrain, good luck man

Pull the oil pan, I'd almost bet there is water in the bottom.

Might as well plan on a rebore and top end rebuild, bottom end might be ok.

my old stand by is gas/tranny fluid down plug holes.drain oil and refill and try turning motor over by hand it might take a while so be patient.if you can get it broke lose and running change the oil and filter,youll probably want to scrub your carbs and tank out real good too while youre waiting for cylinders to break loose.if it doesnt brake loose then you can always do the topend.goodluck,happy wrenching!

Well some good news, last night I sprayed some WD-40 into the cylinders and let it stew overnight. Now I just came from the barn and I resprayed the cylinders and put the bike into third and rolled it forward, last night the only result from that were some tiremarks on the floor but this time it broke loose. It even turns on the starter although the battery is crap and barely holds a charge.

I was at the end of a valve job when I broke up with my ex and left the bike, now I have to finish up what I had left of that (managed to put the camshafts in and forgot to place two of the camshaft bushings, at least I found the bushings in the boxes where all my stuff ended up in).

I don't have my compression meter up here but I'll check the compression this weekend and see if I need to replace the rings and do a hone job.

I'll start with placing the bushings back and see if the beast will start.

Next up is replacing the oil, filter and tuning the carbs. And then I have a whole winter ahead of me to shine it up before next summer.

I did notice however that one of the aluminum braces for the camshafts has a crack in it, it has four bolts on it two on each side and there is a crack between the two pares, this particular piece of the brace doesn't hold anything down and the bolts are all tight and in the right place so to speak so I'm wondering how big of a problem this can be.

I don't know how humid the climate is where you live, but I'm in the US, 250 miles southeast of Chicago, and a bare cylinder block sitting in my unheated garage (dry) will rust within a year, and need rebored after two years, unless coated with grease or heavy oil. I learned that the hard way

I bought a GPz750 motor (for parts) that had been sitting outside a guy's house near Austin Texas for two years, with no carbs or exhaust on it.
I took the head off to see why it would only turn over 90 degrees in each direction, and found two cylinders that were filled halfway to the top with dirt. The wind had blown dust in through the open valves.

Post edited by: steell, at: 2006/10/03 13:08

Well I live just outside Stockholm, Sweden. I suppose the temperate climate here is something like the in the northern USA. The countryside is covered with pine forests and interspersed with thousands of lakes. The summers can go up to the mid nineties and the winters can go down to minus 25. There isn't much salt in the air since we're a bit inland and the Baltic Sea has a low salt level.

The engine turns over now and doesn't seem to catch anywhere, I guess I'll find out this weekend if it still has any compression.

Then when that is done I know there are a few other things to take a look at, when the bike broke down 2 weeks after I first bought it I had a problem with it blowing safeties when it reved over 7000rpm's, this was after I installed a Dyna ignition on it.
Then I gotta refurbish the front fork and take a look at the electric system.

A part of me wants to shine this beast up to the best level it can be and another just wants to get rid of it and it's bastard cousin the XN Turbo and buy a modern bike that just runs and doesn't mark its territory with splashes of oil all over the place.