Hey team, 

Got a motor 2nd hand Ej22 engine from a reputable source who drove the car before it was stored (this person will refund me should the engine be toast) and the engine is locking up when you turn it over, have pulled timing cover/belt/plugs and it spins freely for a bit then it hits a dead stop.

My immediate thought was it skipped a tooth on the timing belt and it's locking up on a valve but since taking the timing belt off and turning the cams, however when the motor is in the locked position they still spin freely.

Engine is sitting on the mounts, no gearbox etc to rule out anything with the clutch.

Any other ideas where else i can check without pulling the engine to bits? - i thought maybe a bolt in the bore, although that is maybe a long stretch?

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

after sleeping on it i decided to put a magnet into the bore and some rusty stuff came out of one of the spark plug holes, so whipped that head off... its not great news.. its locking on a thick layer of rust, guess im getting a refund. 

 

Thats the most rust I've seen.  

Most likely not going to clean that one up.  How are the other cylinders?

Get your money back and get a different one.  What year?

www.car-part.com is a good search tool and will give you an idea of prices.

Self serve junk yards will be cheaper.

I haven't pulled the head off the other side yet, and don't think I'm going to, guy wants the motor back to give me a full refund and then he is going to dump it which is sort of annoying as i need the heads and intake as i could just slap them onto another EJx motor, but at the end of the day if that's what gets my money back I'm ok with that.

 

I'm based in New Zealand, so these motors are kind of a rarity, but finding a dohc turbo EJ is dime a dozen. Shame our govt rules on modding a chassis is a lot harsher than putting a late model motor in.

 

I'll keep my eyes out as i was quite excited about getting this one in the engine bay etc.

Why not offer to buy the pieces you want off of this engine? The worst he could say is no.

Spoke to the guy this AM, he doesn't want it back and we have come to an arrangement on price, i doubt this block is savable, but id be keen to hear any (even rough barstar* type) fixes

To fix that block, have that cylinder sleeved then bored to match the other bores. 

Best way to do it would be to sleeve all bores and have each cylinder bored out to match the piston being fitted into that bore. 

But $$$$ needed as it’s a full bottom end rebuild going this way. 

Have you tried cleaning up the bore when the piston is back down the cylinder? You might be surprised as to how it comes up and could possibly save you the hassle of a rebuild. 

The EJ22 must be hard to come by over there. They’re becoming harder to find these days across the ditch from you. 

Cheers 

Bennie

Hi Bennie, 

Haven't tried cleaning it yet, might give it a whirl to see how bad it is, it will likely be much cheaper to grab a 2.0 block and build something from there.

 

Cheers