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Before you leave your car for a while (more than a year)
1. Car on the jack stands. Take off wheels
2. battery disconnected or battery maintainer
3. change all fluid (eg. engine, brake, tranny, diff, coolant etc)
4. lube hinges, joints. silicon spray on rubber components, light rust inhibitor on bare metals
5. Clean your car, wax the exterior and dress up interior
6. Block some openings so that insect doesn’t get in to any parts or inside
7. drop some oil in the piston chamber. the oil will protect the piston surface and ring seals.
8. turn the crank, don’t let the valve springs be compressed
9. Leave about 1/3 gas in the tank, put some sta-bil. You will fill the tank full with fresh gas when it comes to drive the car again
10. Cover your car, store it insideBefore you drive your car again
1. Change fluids
2. buy a new battery (depending on how long you don’t drive)
3. take a look everything closely, find cracks or rust
4. clean your car, take off debris, dusts, insect shits etc…
5. Fresh gas
6. turn the crank with hand, circulate the oil through the engineIf the car starts up successfully,
1. drive it around, waste some gas, get new gas (again.)
2. listen your car carefully. make sure everything is fine.
3. Come back, run some tests and check (eg, compression, oil pressure, water/oil temp, bearing, ball joints, read obd etc…)I have searched about it since I’m going army end of this year. She will have to wait for me for more than two years in the garage alone.
Please add if you have other tipsi remember when my old buick sat for 1.5 months because the engine went the rotors rusted so bad and where the pads covered the rotors there was hardly any rust at all, this caused eventual break pulsation because of the rust.
one thing that really can develop because of sitting is engine noises, oil gets caught in the lifter vallies and if its dirty it gets sludgy and the lifters can stick bearings can go dry all that jazz and i think the second engine in my old car suffered with those issues which helped its demise.
the most healthy thing for a car is for it too be constantly drive, this keeps the gaskets nice and soft like they are supposed too be, rubber hoses firm but pliable, grease equally distributed in the joints and bearings, so much better for a car too be driven as it is meant to be.
My brother’s Camaro sat for a year or so before I bought it, and it took a lot of money to get it to run. The starter died and the oil pan gasket leaked badly. I wasn’t able to replace it myself, so of course it cost hundreds of dollars to have a shop replace it. I can’t say the tires went rock hard and lost traction because of sitting since they were probably 7 or 8 years old. That’s why I now drive it at least once a week.
I’ve only every stored one car semi long term. I used fogging spray in the cylinders that I bought at a marina for a few bucks. It does a nice job of keeping the cylinders and combustion chambers free of rust. While its sat.
Since then I started using it on engines that have sat for a long time or been stored. Before even trying to start them I remove the plugs and give a good does into each cylinder to help lubricate the rings top side. Then I put the big socket on the crank and rotate it around a few times to make sure its all moving.
I’m also a big fan of disconnecting the fuel injector harness and cranking the engine while the plugs are out to circulate oil up into the valve train and into the bearings. It does a good job of spitting out any of the fogging oil it didn’t want in there.
Once its all back together fire it up and pray that you don’t have to trouble searching. Once its running I let it idle, perhaps with the throttle held open slightly via whatever tool was handy to heat it all up and start looking for leaks while it un tangles its self.
The biggest thing I think with trying to start a car that’s sat a long while is keeping a good charge on the battery. Most people don’t even think to even disconnect the battery. If my car is going to sit longer than a week I plug a battery tender in. On top of that once a week In winter I plug the tender in over night to help ensure all is healthy. Seems tedious and perhaps overkill, but any battery I’ve owned from new lasts longer than anyone else.
[quote=”JS” post=100657]I’ve only every stored one car semi long term. I used fogging spray in the cylinders that I bought at a marina for a few bucks. It does a nice job of keeping the cylinders and combustion chambers free of rust. While its sat.
Since then I started using it on engines that have sat for a long time or been stored. Before even trying to start them I remove the plugs and give a good does into each cylinder to help lubricate the rings top side. Then I put the big socket on the crank and rotate it around a few times to make sure its all moving.
I’m also a big fan of disconnecting the fuel injector harness and cranking the engine while the plugs are out to circulate oil up into the valve train and into the bearings. It does a good job of spitting out any of the fogging oil it didn’t want in there.
Once its all back together fire it up and pray that you don’t have to trouble searching. Once its running I let it idle, perhaps with the throttle held open slightly via whatever tool was handy to heat it all up and start looking for leaks while it un tangles its self.
The biggest thing I think with trying to start a car that’s sat a long while is keeping a good charge on the battery. Most people don’t even think to even disconnect the battery. If my car is going to sit longer than a week I plug a battery tender in. On top of that once a week In winter I plug the tender in over night to help ensure all is healthy. Seems tedious and perhaps overkill, but any battery I’ve owned from new lasts longer than anyone else.[/quote]
Great tips!
I won’t go to car museums anymore because I know a lot of these vehicles are never driven and are therefore being ruined. Better they were sold off to car enthusiasts and driven to car shows.
[quote=”barneyb” post=100903]I won’t go to car museums anymore because I know a lot of these vehicles are never driven and are therefore being ruined. Better they were sold off to car enthusiasts and driven to car shows.[/quote]
That’s kinda how I felt when I saw Rick Hendrick’s collection. A LOT of cars just sitting there, lonely, waiting to see the open road again.
The same goes when I visit airplane museums. When there are only two left in the world I realize one needs to be kept on the ground. But an aircraft that flies, even if identical to the grounded unit, is a whole different animal, while the other is reduced to a dust collector.
I see the pictures of the aircraft in WWII, paint chipped, blackened by exhaust and oil, they are like cars at an end of a race, real things, not the artifacts we see in museums.
I don’t think some people really realise how much an engine rusts together just from sitting.. I cringe when I see stuff on YT or TV where people find these barn finds or whatever and “We just found this excellent condition 1979 Trans Am in a barn and we’re going to see if it’ll crank/start!”
For one; the gas goes bad even after a couple months… And the engine is a different story. My buddy was dragging his feet with this 89 Mustang 2.3T SVT swap project and the old engine was sitting in the car for over 10 years when I finally got him to take it out and find an appropriate crate engine… So we yanked the old 2.3T and tore into it. The oil was really bad, but worse yet was the internals which were almost rusted solid!! And this was sitting in a garage of a house for 10 years… We had to use the business end of a hammer to get the pistons out! They were rusted to the cyl walls. Not to mention that the head took some convincing to get off.
Did I get a video of the oil?? why yes I did…. *Language warning*
thats the way i feel when ever i go too a car museum of any kind, cars are meant too be driven, not just sit there and rot!
[quote=”barneyb” post=101057]The same goes when I visit airplane museums. When there are only two left in the world I realize one needs to be kept on the ground. But an aircraft that flies, even if identical to the grounded unit, is a whole different animal, while the other is reduced to a dust collector.
I see the pictures of the aircraft in WWII, paint chipped, blackened by exhaust and oil, they are like cars at an end of a race, real things, not the artifacts we see in museums.[/quote]
in my opinion when you got P-51 Mustangs with chipped paint, stained black around the exhaust area and gun ports from the smoke, thats the way it should be, same with cars, if there ain’t chips on the bumper, and a little wear on the tires, a few nicks here and there its just a sad lonely trailer queen wanting too be let loose.
[quote=”Bayer-Z28″ post=101428]I don’t think some people really realise how much an engine rusts together just from sitting.. I cringe when I see stuff on YT or TV where people find these barn finds or whatever and “We just found this excellent condition 1979 Trans Am in a barn and we’re going to see if it’ll crank/start!”
For one; the gas goes bad even after a couple months… And the engine is a different story. My buddy was dragging his feet with this 89 Mustang 2.3T SVT swap project and the old engine was sitting in the car for over 10 years when I finally got him to take it out and find an appropriate crate engine… So we yanked the old 2.3T and tore into it. The oil was really bad, but worse yet was the internals which were almost rusted solid!! And this was sitting in a garage of a house for 10 years… We had to use the business end of a hammer to get the pistons out! They were rusted to the cyl walls. Not to mention that the head took some convincing to get off.
Did I get a video of the oil?? why yes I did…. *Language warning*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA_kYEAKjpI%5B/quote%5Ddon’t know whats worse, vomit, or that…
^ The scarry thing is, I helped him rip that engine out of a totaled 89 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe, he put it in his mustang (against my advice to rebuild it first) and whaddya know…… He dragged his feet from 2000/01 to about 2010/2011 when I lit a fire under him to get it out of there when he found a crate engine.. so we pulled it back out after 10 years of sitting in the same garage because he never worked on it. He still hasn’t gotten it going so I lost my motivation to keep him motivated… And he’s unemployed now …. again… So there’s a built Stinger 2.3t for sale that’s loaded with mods for sale. I’m tempted to pick up an Extended cab 2.3 n/a Ranger and buy his crate engine and make a fun little sleeper.. 😀 All it really needs to run is the intercooler, bov, injectors and your choice of PCM setup. MegaSquirt, OEM, or whatever else you can make work.
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