Some advice on starting car after storage?

[nel]

Hi, I've learned a lot from this forum and would appreciate some advice. Last summer, I put my '87 Corvette up on stands for some much needed work. This included replacing valve stem seals and the AC compressor. To make a long story short, I had to go in for arm surgery so the car has sat for a year. I'm intent on finishing the repairs and plan to start the car within the next month.

What are some pointers for prepping the engine before firing it up? Thanks.

 

[mrchecker]

When I start my Checker for the first time after a winter of storage, I disconnect the power from the distributor and crank the engine for 30 seconds to circulate the oil. Plug the wire back in and she starts right up.

 

[allen820]

A buddy of mine always drops about a tablespoon of Marvel Mystery oil into each cylinder and lets it soak a while before crank up in such situations. He thinks it provides extra lube protection since no doubt most of the oil has run out of this important area during storage. At any rate, you'll have a pretty impressive smoke screen on start up!

 

[Chris142]

quote:

---

Originally posted by mrchecker:
When I start my Checker for the first time after a winter of storage, I disconnect the power from the distributor and crank the engine for 30 seconds to circulate the oil. Plug the wire back in and she starts right up.

---

This is a terrible thing to do. This spins the engine over at a slow speed that is probly too slow for the oil pump to pump oil pretty much spinning the engine over unlubricated.

You guys need to pull the distributer and spin the oil pump with a drill motor. The Vette guy can buy a tool to do this, you can use an old distributer w/o a gear also. There is an oil passage in the sbc that the dist intersects so you cant spin the pump w/o something in the dist hole or you will just dump the oil back into the pan w/o it going to the bearings.

I'm not familliar with the Checker engine but I assume that the dist drives the oil pump. Gotta be a way to prime it.

Putting oil in the cyls before starting only creates smoke, does nuthing else. You don't want the crank to run dry........Dry rings really don't matter. You may want to put some oil in the cyl's when it's first parked to prevent rust.

 

[JohnBrowning]

GM's Kent Moore Tools has a new primeing system that will work with all engines. You pump it up with a built in hand pump to pressurise it. You hook it to the oil port for thr sending unit and it will pump the oil through the system. THis is much easier then useing the distributor priming tool and it works on all vechiles not just BB's and SB's.

 

[Mike_dup1]

For a once is a blue moon startup, there is little to gain from buying expensive tools. If anything, a tool to spin the oil pump by removing the distributor would be the best.

I think I would just go ahead and start it up as is. Sitting for 1 yr or 1 month, whats the difference?

 

[Ed]

I'd be more concerned about stale gas and crud in the fuel lines. It might pay to disconnect a fuel line and and let the electric fuel pump squirt gas into a bottle until it looks clear. You might have to jumper some connections to do this.

 

[Drew99GT]

I don't think I'd want "jumpered" connections with raw fuel spilling out of a fuel line