Expensive rebuild in storage

[zies8]

I am concerned that I may be causing myself a problem with my engine. I hope that I am overly concerned. I have been into my restoration now for 2.5 years. The engine was rebuilt and is now on the 95% completed chassis. I have added oil to the cylinders and rotated them.
Does anyone have any words for me as to what I should do? The chassis is in my garage and it has been the whole time. It is dry but gets cold.
I dont forsee having the body on for a few months. I couldnt guess when I will be ready to fire her up.
Dreams of rusted cylinders and camshafts ;help .

You can see pictures of the project here.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid17/pb1afd36a8d2cd6262bb042a61d4e8f19/fdf530be.jpg.thumb.jpg

 

[Ken]

I found the following after a brief search. It details what one should do before storage, as well as how to approach it after long-term storage.

If a piston is 'stuck', the reciprocating assembly won't even turn over. If it is 'stuck' your engine would be locked up.

Marvel Mystery oil is sold at most auto parts stores in a red and black quart can. This oil has a very thin viscosity and whenever I store a car for any length of time I pull the air cleaner and pour a bit into the carburetor with the engine running, and a bit more with the engine not running. This coats the intake tract AND the cylinder walls and combustion chambers.

Upon refiring the engine after prolonged storage, this thin film of oil will burn off with no ill effects. It has never failed me yet.

Oil never loses it's ability to lubricate, it's additives simply wear out and lose their ability to fight sludge, varnish and corrosion.

DO change your oil before you run the engine, but if the car was maintained properly before storage and it had a nice cozy place to sit during storage (barn or garage, as opposed to an open field in the weather with weeds and mice, etc.) You shouldn't need to do much more than change the oil and make sure everything else is ok, depending upon where it was stored. You should NOT need to get into the engine if it was stored in a good climate. Use your judgement.

More important is to get rid of ALL the old, stale gasoline in the tank. This will cause you problems if you don't. You will find that from sitting and changing temperatures, condensation will form inside the tank, not to mention the gas breaking down. If you start it with that old fuel, you'll just be pushing water and garbage (rust and corrosion) up through your fuel lines. Replace ALL the old fuel. Do this and you'll be glad you did.

Incidentally, I ran Marvel Mystery Oil (ask for it by name) in my crankcase and in my fuel (as a top cylinder lubricant) and my engine ALWAYS purred the entire time I had it. It was a 1970 Pontiac Grand Prix with a 400 4bbl., and I maintained it well and ran it hard until I sold it @ 144,000 miles.

You neglected to mention; when the engine was rebuilt, was it given an initial run-in to break in the cam and other moving parts?

 

[zies8]

Engine rebuild

The engine was rebuilt 2.5 years ago. I dont know what the shop did to it as far as running it or testing it.

 

[Ken]

My concern would mainly be on whether the cam was broken in properly. I don't know what to tell you about that, but as for the rest of the engine, I personally would be sure to squirt a liberal amount of oil (Marvel Mystery Oil is supposed to work wonders. ) into the cylinders and turn the engine over by hand a few times, alternating between doses of oil, and turning the engine over by hand for a few days.

You caught the note about using fresh fuel when you do attempt to fire it for the first time, right? Try to check with the mechanic to see what preparations were taken when the engine was rebuilt. It might save you a lot of worry. :cool

My guess is that if the cam was not broken in properly, or liberally coated with assembly lube, it is now worthless.

_ken

 

[resto75]

Years ago I worked in an outboard boat motor shop and when we put the engines away for the winter (lived up north then) we would run them at about 1/2 throttle and spray a steady stream of Marvel oil into the carb throat until the engine choked out. In the spring we would just fire them up again. They would smoke for a few minutes but that would clear up quickly.

We didn't have valves to worry about but the Marvel oil kept all the cylinders, rings and reeds lubed up nicely.

 

[Tyler Townsley]

Bag it on a day with low humidty and add some decosance?? (stuff used to dry out camera lenses)

Tyler