FE 35 with 23c 4 cly. diesel.

Try undoing the big end caps (remembering to number them) and knocking the liners out complete with pistons. You can then try both warming the liners (carefully as the pistons will expand more quickly than the liners) or puttingthe liner in a press, maybe even cutting the liner in half (carefully!)

Other important things on this engine, always renew the timing chain and the thermostart unit, and make sure you clean the gauze in the sump well before reassembly or the oil pump will cavitate.

I suggest that you strip both the lift head and the pump, neither are particularly dificult if you are methodical and many parts are available including complete pump overhaul kits and the lift cylinder rings. I have come across siezed lift arms before, you need a big trough of diesel to soak the ends of the cross shaft, and sometimes a lot of heat as well. Get the lift arms off and get it all cleaned up, greased and put back together. Replace the cross shaft o-rings. I always remove the quadrant if I've had to strip the lift head, get it shotblasted and re-plated. They look much better and if you're going to show it in the future will make all the difference to the appearance.

I recommend that you do all these jobs at once, if you try to turn the engine and the pump has siezed then you're only making more trouble for yourself!

I agree that the main bearing retainers are unusual, and as I recall the crank is extremely heavy to remove/refit. The best way is to drop the block on it's back and lower the crank in downwards through the front. That's why I said that to change the mains was preferable but not as important as changing the big ends. Mine were 20 thou oval so the crank had to be reground to the smallest size. I recall that it took several weeks to locate thrust washers, eventually the machinists found some in Scotland somewhere.

It's certainly a good engine to rebuild if you want an educational experience, needless to say that Perkins is still open at Peterborough, the Standard engine factory is just down the road to me and is now a supermarket.....

One other comment, when I first rebuilt it it started OK but after 50 Hours of road work was becoming hard work. I had been running on 15W40 Multifleet which I use on modern engines. I pulled the head off, deglazed the bores and refilled with HD30 oil, which is quite thick and has little additive. I don't know what's on the clock now but it still starts very well.