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Well I cleaned that one up (took out a giant handful of rusty crap) and the news ain't good. The cylinder walls look like the surface of the moon, and the craters that the rust ate into the walls are over an eighth of an inch deep and are everywhere. It's toast.
As a result, I went and opened up my OTHER stuck flathead and examined it. It also had water damage, but nowhere near as bad. I have a neighbour who has been a mechanic for over 60 years and is very familiar with the old stuff, and we are going to give it a more thorough look over to see if it's within "dingleball territory"!
If the block otherwise was perfect and that was the only thing wrong, sure, it could be sleeved. I don't know what that costs these days, but one would for sure want it tanked, pressure tested and magnafluxed before expending any extra energy on it. That one looks like it may have a lot of damage around the valves as well and may not be a good candidate.
The news really isn't all that bad. Yes, that first engine is beyond repair, but its covered in all kinds of great spare parts! The other seized flathead that I have (also a 1950 8BA) looks like this:
I am going to keep trying to unseize it, as it has resisted my efforts so far (I've done all the usual stuff like a lengthy ATF/Acetone soak, smacking pistons with a hammer and piece of hardwood, crowbar on the ring gear, etc, etc, etc). My next step will be to get it onto a stand, and drop the oil pan and maybe the crank so that I can tap the pistons without them being held in place by the crank & connecting rods.
I once used a bottle jack against a chain wrapped around the engine to "convince" a piston to move. We put a block of wood on the piston.
It was on a 360ci ford years ago. We pulled the head on that side of the engine.
We were able to get it to budge, then clean that area. Then work it back and forth to slowly get it to move through the whole rotation. We were broke teenagers and couldn't afford much so we put it back together, reusing the head gasket and everything. Drove that truck for years after that.....LOL
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