Low speed engine lock up on L134

I cant figure this one out, my 1946 CJ2a, which i have driven just briefly after buying, smoked like crazy, but ran well and had good  oil pressure.  Fresh oil. I recently drove it just a bit  and in first gear, going slowly, the engine just  stopped and is now just locked up tight, starter will not budge it.  Rocking the jeep in gear will get no engine movement.  Any thought on what might have caused such a low speed lock up, and what i might do? thanks in advance.  

My guess.....oil pump failure.

No,it was running on plenty of fresh oil, and last time i looked it had good oil pressure, but that could have dropped off and i might not have noticed.  I suppose i will pull the starter and look, its just strange, since the engine was under very little load and going slowly.

No, so strange noises, and I have thrown rods and such on cars in my dumber faster days so have an appreciation for deep knocking and suck. Of some interest,  the electric fuel pump had gone out, and I was running it on a gasoline IV which is gravity fed, but that always works ok. It was however, running poorly and was not its normal self, so I do fear something coming apart like a oil ring, but not sure that would seize it up. 

Oh, wow, I'm sorry to hear that. You could start by pulling the spark plugs and looking to see if any of them are beat up, and shine a light / look inside thru the plug holes for damage or anything where it doesn't belong. You can drain the oil and look for filings/shavings/pieces in the oil. Then, you may have an idea whether to pull the head or the pan. You could also pull the oil pump and inspect the gear on it and the camshaft. A broken oil pump gear and even a broken gear on the cam might actually be a "good" thing, since if the pump stops so does the distributor and the engine stops, possibly avoiding more serious damage. I don't think that in itself would lock up the motor, though. Good Luck.   BW

Edited by Bruce W - 10 May 2013 at 3:52pm

All true, all possible, I will pull the starter just in case its the culprit, but I doubt it. What I failed to mention is that I was getting in shape to sell it since 3 cj2a's are a bit much these days. Hate to try to sell with a locked engine as selling it "running but needs rebuilding" usually a lot better- We shall see. 

Glad it was not the oil pump and that your engine is good to go.Had that same starter issue on my 45 GPW and changed out the starter bendix drive and have not had a problem since.If the starter is staying engaged with the flywheel after start up,you should be hearing one hell of a winding noise.

Before you color this problem solved, count the teeth on both your flywheel ring gear and your starter drive gear.  The stock configuration is a 97 tooth ring gear and a 10 tooth starter.  Later model ring gears had both 124 teeth and 129 teeth.  These won't work well with a 10 tooth starter.  The 124 tooth ring gear is supposed to have a 9 tooth starter gear.  I don't recall what the 129 tooth ring gear requires, but, again, the 97 tooth ring gear needs a 10 tooth starter.   Several members have had this problem of mismatched gears before because they usually work for a little while but then bind up.

TERRY wrote: I don't think the Bendix is supposed to be "greased".