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On 15 May 2004 at 20:19, Ben Doughney wrote: > I have had a weird problem develop on my Squareback. I went to my shed > to get her out for a car show tomorrow, and she wouldn't turn over. She > has been sitting for a while- about a month or so, so I got out the > jumper cables thinking the battery was run down. That didn't make a > difference, so I opened up the engine hatch and tried to turn the > engine over by hand. Having read everyone else's comments, I agree that some carbon must have crumbled off the heads and fallen to the bottom of one of the cylinders. By now, this is probably just a powder which is getting compacted in the squish space at the bottom margin of the cylinder. I've never seen this happen in a car, but I've certainly seen it happen with heads which I've had stored dirty in my basement. There's no solvent that will dissolve this stuff, but I wonder if it's possible that you could put some kind of light oil in there that would allow the carbon powder to form a slurry that would move out of the way when the piston comes up. If I were you, I'd get something like kerosene, diesel fuel, or ATF and pour a couple tablespoons full in that cylinder. It's likely that you won't be able to figure out which cylinder it is, but you should be able to narrow it down to either the front or rear pair, so you'll have to treat 2 cylinders. Once the oil is in there, move the piston up and back against the blockage rapidly by hand a few times in an attempt to mix it all up. If you're lucky you may suddenly find that it will suddenly free up. If so, put the spark plugs back in quickly and start the engine. Once the engine has actually run for a bit, you may have to replace or clean the plugs in the cylinders which had oil in them If you are unlucky, the oil may loosen up additional carbon and leave you even more stuck. There is no real down side to this however, because the remedy will not have changed: You'll still need to pull the engine and heads to clean out both sides. Yes, I agree that if you end up doing this, you may as well get the heads worked over completely. -- ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org