Quote:
Originally Posted by PeteKz
There are several threads within the past year or so about reviving cars that had been sitting for years. Search for those and read them.
It sounds like you are going into this project with some knowledge and caution, and that's good. Insist to your uncle that you need to take the car to your garage to replace and clean the fuel system, and remind him that you are about to spend at least $1000 or so on replacement parts for it, so you want to make sure it's done right. Promise him that you will get it running, and you will take him for a ride, or he can drive it, before Christmas! That should seal the deal.
How many miles on it? Is it a Euro car? I ask becuase you said the fuel injection lines are plastic, but the US SC's have steel lines in that year (along with an oxygen sensor system).
CIS is generally simple and you can figure it out with the help here. One component that will probably need to be replaced is the Fuel Accumulator (FA), unless your uncle can verify that he replaced it before it was parked. At this age, most of those are leaking internally, causing hard warm starts. But wait until you get it running first.
In general, I encourage people to take the "Roadkill Garage" approach to getting an old car running. Get it running and driving first, then drive it and find out what else it needs before you plunge down the slippery slope of improvement. It's ALWAYS better to do a driving repair/restoration, than to do major disassembly, run into delays and high costs, and risk it becoming a long-term project and garage ornament.
Do the simple stuff first: change the oil and try starting it on starting fluid. It should fire up for a second or so. If it does, then congrats, you have spark. If it doesn't, then you will need to troubleshoot the ignition system. also pull out the spark plugs and crank the engine until you get oil pressure showing on the gauge. After 20 years, the oil has probably drained out of the oil galleries and lines.
Re the old fuel and gas tank: Look closely in the tank for actual corrosion and poke it with a long screwdriver. Old fuel will leave brown stain in the tank too. If the last fuel put in the tank was in 2003, it may have been free of ethanol contamination, which absorbs water, and greatly increases the possibility of rust. If there is significant rust, just replace the tank, and you will save yourself more than $500 worth of headaches down the line. Pull the fuel pump and drain out the old fuel and any crud that collects in there. Run some kerosene or such through it and connect it to a battery both forwards and backwards to flush out any crud. Old rubber/cloth fuel lines are probably in need of replacement at this point in its life, so get new fuel lines.
Fuel injectors: After you get it running, you can pull those out and take them to a local shop for cleaning and testing. In my area, a lot of NAPA parts stores offer this service.
Don't drop the engine until you get it running. The oil leaks may be easy to fix, or at least reduce to a few drips, without dropping the engine/tranny. Dropping the engine leads to a lot of other "while you're in there" sub-projects, so avoid it for this year.
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Apologies. I posted this post then life got really busy in the fall with traveling and other things. Currently, my wifes uncle and we are playing call tennis, whereby we call him and leave a voicemail, then he does the same. At some point we will catch up!
Thank you very much for the concise post. It was very helpful and definitely in line with my game plan on getting it running. I made the mistake of trying to bare metal restore a car once and 6 years into it I move country and had to leave it behind. I'm very much on board with the 'get it running, drive and enjoy while working out issues' club.
Regarding the gas tank, it's toast. With new ones available for $500 it really is a no brainer to replace.
To answer your final question, it is a Euro car! He bought it supposedly from a serviceman who got it in Germany and it still has the KM/H speedo in it. Currently reads ~48000km which is ~30k miles.
Here is the engine bay:
