Hello everyone,

I have been lurking in the background for some time & now I have a question. I am new to the rotary game & have finally found one for sale. The guy says that he thinks it may have frozen over the winter aqs there is no pressure in the engine now. He says it just needs new seals. Does this sound feasible? or does a rotary crack just like a regular piston motor when frozen. I would like to get one soon so I need to know if it is worth looking at or not.

Thanks

Alex

It may be that the engine is locked do to excessive carbon build-up... just a thought

well, its an old car..... so carbon build up might have come into play. and not using it for the whole winter does not help the cause

I start mine once a month in the winter just to keep it from siezing. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...#>/biggrin.png

If he says it has no compression even when it did turn over, I wouldnt buy the car. If it needs new seals, it needs a rebuild.



Another possibility is that it broke an apex seal causing it to loose compression, as well as locking up the engine with the broken pieces.



IMO, I would find a car thats at least running.



~T.J.

"It MAY HAVE frozen over the winter" the guy says... Sounds to me like he has no idea what he's talking about.



The best thing to do is check it out for yourself.



First thing I'd do is check the fluid in the cooling system. If there's WATER in there and not antifreeze... the guy says it may have froze over the winter, he meant that literally... Which is BAAAAAD being we had a rough winter this year.



But still keep looking further...



Bring a 19mm socket and wrachet... put the wratchet on the bolt in the center of the main pulley and see if the motor turns by turning the wratchet. Don't force it toooo hard if it doesn't turn and try going both ways. You can have someone grab a belt to help you turn the motor or put a bar on your wratchet for some leverage, but again don't force it toooo hard.



If the motor turns by hand or wratchet you're off to a better start then we've expected and there's still hope. Hope that mabey this guy REALLY doesn't know what he's doing and you can walk away with a car for cheap. But don't get tooo excited yet....



If the motor does turn, and the battery is up to par (if not use jumpercables) pull the leading (which are the lower) spark plugs one at a time and take a compression test. Borrow oa tester or buy one from SEARS and return it when ur done... lol. This test will tell all. Do the compression test on the front housing by removing the lower/front plug and get a reading... Then do the compression test on the rear housing by removing the lower/rear plug.



You want to see pulses on the compression tester... it's going to be bouncy and hard to notice but if you stare at it while someone cranks the car you can see if theres a DROP in compression.. The bounces should ALL be even... Tell us what the #'s are here at the forum and we'll tell you if the cars worth buying if you even get that far....



Whatever you do... don't get the car started for the guy... lol.