starting engine after 4 years

thesey914 · 11-23-2002, 06:38 PM

I found a guy who has a 3.0 engine sitting in his barn after buying a pair of Fuchs from him. He told me its from his brothers accident damaged SC and is complete except for the fan/alternator. Naturally I want to take it off his hands but it has been sitting on the pallet for four years.
It seems prudent to me that this motor will have to come apart for inspection, but then I was thinking if the oil was changed, fan replaced etc, etc and the motor was cranked over manually would it be feasible to start it.
Has anybody ran an engine after such a long period of inactivity?

Nathan · 11-23-2002, 07:19 PM

My cousin had a 3.0 engine that was sitting in back yard shed for 2 years. He had bought from a junk yard it as a spare for his SC.. He crank it once in a while and squirting oil to the piston thru the spark plug hole. He ended up having to use the engine but before he had install it he put new valve stem seals and did the valve clearances and bunch of other things. I heard it run but smoking form the oil on top of the piston. It sounded good and ran good.

Tim Walsh · Tim Walsh's Garage

check for rodent and make sure all external moving parts work. My car that sat for a year had a nest over the cooling fins and nearly seized throttle bodies. I'll let ya know more when it's on the road

(see my story tomarrow)

APKhaos · 11-23-2002, 09:36 PM

The biggest concern is rust and water accumulation.

There may be better ways, but this technique is a good start [pun].

- drain all fuel lines - dry 'em out completely before adding fresh gas.
- Install new fuel filter/s

- remove the distributor cap.
- Spray lots of WD40 into each cylinder. Crank for 30 seconds. Wait a day or two.
- Squirt a couple of ounces of oil in each cylinder. Crank for 30 seconds. Wait a day or two.

These steps should clear any corrosion. Now you are ready to try to start it. Once you get it started [don't run it to full temp the first time, its time to drain the oil, replace the filter and start it again.

Now you should be ready to see what you've got. You might be surprised at how well it runs. Hope so.

Good luck - even 3.0s deserve a good home

beamonk · 11-23-2002, 10:13 PM

check the head studs, especially on the SC. I bought my euro motor and pulled off the fan housing and found the rodent nest too. Pulled the valve covers and tink, tink, two head studs fell out. Good thing too, as we replaced the studs with racewares and did the top end, we found the valve guides worn a bit. It seems that the European fuels may have contributed to the guides wearing out. Runs like a new dog now.

thesey914 · 11-24-2002, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by APKhaos
The biggest concern is rust and water accumulation.

Thanks for the advice Tony, my concern was rust in the cylinders too -just thinking- these are nikasil cylinders right? So could the rings theoretically fuse to the bores like other mortal engines?

I am going to make a return trip to see this engine again armed with a few tools and crank it over by hand and have a more in-depth look.
Obviously the fan/alternator will have to be replaced and some CPR performed but there is no reason why this motor will not run on the pallet, is there?

Heh -I didn't consider the possibility of rodents fowling up the airflow in the fan housing.

Evans, Marv · 11-24-2002, 08:16 AM

I bought a '77 2.7L from a guy a few years ago that had been stored in his garage. He said it was in really good shape. I was going to rebuild it anyway & took apart. Turned out his kids (or somebody) had poured dirt into two of the cylinders. It wasn't apparent just looking at the engine, but it sure wouldn't have ran that way.

tryan · 11-24-2002, 09:00 AM

completely filling the engine with oil for a few days might save the valve guides