At the Oshawa military museum, we got the front covers off a sadly neglected R975-C1 out of the Sexton. We were expecting pistons rusted into bores but it was much worse. 5 of the 8 articulated rods are broken at the big ends (which, to my surprise, are actually the small ends because the knuckle pins are much smaller diameter than the wrist pins). The master rod bearing is also toast with about 1/16" clearance.
A number of pistons are all smashed up and each broken rod smacked the bottom of its liner on both sides as it was thrashing around so that the liner is mushroomed out, making it a pain to pull the jugs. The crank is a mess but surprisingly the crankcase looks intact.
Very disappointing. It probably makes a rebuild out of the question as we need a complete rotating assembly and probably 9 jugs. It's probably best to part it out and install a Detroit diesel to make the old girl mobile again.
Malcolm (using Cliff's sign-on)
