340 Stuck Cylinder Advice Needed

[neworiginal]

Man is this 340 humbling. I cannot get the PTO cylinder to release. Tried rubber mallet and have sprayed the studs with PB Blaster. It wont budge. I should have taken up golf it seems. I should add the engine is not seized.

[rminier]

 Sometimes you can attach the exhaust y-pipe back on the cylinder and use it as a lever to rock the cylinder a bit.
Or, get the piston down to bottom dead center and stuff a heavy rag on top of the piston and part of it sticking into one of the ports....then turn the crank hard.
 Or, fill the cylinder with rags and install the cylinder head with a couple nuts to hold it. Turn the crank hard to bring piston up to lift the cylinder free. You may have to install the drive clutch to get enough leverage to turn the crank hard to bring the piston upwards. Enough tries it will eventually start to wiggle free.

[mswyka]

Our last 340 tear down was the same way.  Had to  do  quite  a bit of coaxing with the same hammer that I use on the pullers.  I used a couple of small pieces of oak as my punches so that I didn't hit the aluminum with  the hammer.  Probably spent two hours  on it over  the period of two weeks.

Remember that we are talking about a 40 year old engine. The fact that it turns at all is pretty amazing.  And as I like to tell my kids and my co-workers when the going gets tough "if it was easy, anybody could do it."

[neworiginal]

Got it, what a journey so far. As I'm sure you can all tell from my posts and questions, I have no idea what I'm doing but having a blast.

[mswyka]

Satisfying feeling when they come apart.  Even more satisfying when the rebuild fires up for the first time.