Of Valves and Stuck Pistons

Disassembled the valve train today and it came apart quite easily. I feared that the valves in the left cylinder would be frozen like the piston but they fell out without much effort.

The valve seat doesn't appear in bad shape and neither does the valve.

Now the frozen left piston is another matter. This past Wednesday I filled the cylinder with PB Blaster and let it sit till Friday afternoon, hoping it would free the piston. No such luck. So I tried it again and left the PB Blaster in till this morning. Repeatedly beating on the piston top with a 5lb hammer with first a block of wood cushioning (hoping to save the piston) and then a hardened steel drift pin had no effect but denting the piston top.

Evapo-Rust was suggested as a possible solvent to release the piston, but that requires the ambient temperature be 65 degrees, which my garage won't be on its own till June. Fired up the torpedo heater to warm the place up and filled the cylinder with Evapo-Rust and left it sit for 5 hours, and... The piston is still stuck in place. But the solvent did loosen much of the surface rust on the cylinder wall.

Earlier I had removed all the nuts and bolts retaining the cylinder to the crank case and raised the cylinder about 3/4" off the crank case, which shows that the crank will turn freely.

Not sure where to go with the piston. One thought is remove the crankcase and cylinder from the frame, which I'll be doing anyway, and then splitting the crank case and unbolting connecting rod.

Jim