49 C engine hard to crank

[yellercub]

My 49 C was running fine but I began to have trouble starting it. First I thought the battery was low but it is showing 6.24 volts. I then thought starter trouble but starter runs fine out of the tractor. I tried to hand crank it, but engine turns over fairly hard. Pulled the plugs and still acts like it has very high compression. Any ideas?

[Urbish]

Any recent maintenance or rebuild?

[yellercub]

No. The starter is about 2 years old, and I did find the drive spring mangled and replaced it with one from my old starter. The engine is free but really hard to turn with the crank and the starter just hits the fly wheel and stops or at times I can see the fan move a quarter turn.
When I had the starter out today I tried to hand crank the engine and couldn't budge it, put a crow bar in the starter hole and gentle preyed on the fly wheel and it freed up. The engine was always stiff, but I ran it for over 20years and it was never this stiff.

[yellercub]

I did have trouble withe the hydraulics binding earlier this year. Is it possible the hydraulic pump could cause a drag on the engine?

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

My suggestions, with spark plugs out, remove generator belt, followed by loosening the fan belt, if no help there remove the hydraulic pump. If you get that far and still no luck, try rocking engine forward and backward, and see if there is some travel distance. If no travel distance in engine you may have a main crankshaft bearing binding.

[cuznguido]

For peace of mind, I would look at the engine bearings.

[yellercub]

OK here’s what the problem was. I pulled the head and found water on top of the cylinders, and it was water not antifreeze. After toweling out the water and shooting a little WD 40 on the cylinder walls, the engine spun free. There was no sign of rust on the cylinder walls or on the cylinders, There was a little flash rust around the exhaust valves, so I decided to lap the valves while I had the head off.
I really have no idea how it managed to get water in. We have had some very heavy rains here lately. My manifold is in rather poor shape, there are little to no threads left where the exhaust pipe threads in, so I don’t know if water managed to seep in that way. I have a muffler on with a flap, so I really can’t figure out how the water got in there. I did buy a new manifold and exhaust pipe . This had to have happened over a period of about six weeks because that is as long as the tractor had sat without being ran. The water was really not in long enough to do any kind of rust damage but it corroded the cylinders enough to bind the pistons.