Sorry if the title of the post is a bit confusing. I am trying to find a motor for my car and I might've found one. It has 20k miles but hasn't run in a car for years. I want to say over 10 years as it has sat at shops most of it's life.

Is that a bad thing? I mean could I put it in my car, give it some new oil and start it up and have it run fine, or would things be dry rotted?

I can get the engine for a steal for the miles it has, but I don't want to have to rebuild the damn thing when I can do that to my engine.

Thanks alot guys.

-kevin

 

is pull out the spark plugs and see if you can turn it over by hand. look at the gaskets and see if they are rotted, if not, snug all the oil pan and valve cover and other odds and ends down and fire it up..oh , dont forget the oil

 

He said he turned it over by hand back in 2003. What gaskets are you referring to? The engine is complete not taken apart, so would I have to remove the heads to check? I assume the oil is still in there.

 

It really depends upon how it was stored and what was done to it beforehand. I've had a car stored for 3 years with basically no prep, it was fine afterwards because it was in a dry environment. On the other hand, I've gotten an engine that was out of the car less than a month, but left outside and had valve seats and cylinder walls corroded enough to drop compression substantially.

So, you may be okay, you may have a core. If you can, pull the plugs, turn it over by hand. If it turns over okay, and the distributor is still installed, drain the oil, put in fresh oil & new filter, and do a compression check. This can be done with the engine on the floor with a starter installed and jumper cables - just make sure the engine is well supported before you crank the starter. Repeat with a wet compression test.

 

Well I'll see if he can do all that for me. I would hate to spend $500 and have another block. But I could at least part with some of the stuff. We'll see.

Tell me about starting it again, have it on a stand or something with the starter attached. Then what? have jumper cables attached to a battery...where do I connect the other ends to? The black goes to the ground but where do I attach to the starter?

 

With the engine on a suitable stand, flywheel or flexplate installed, starter installed, distributor in, oil installed, spark plugs out:

Attach negative cable to block. Attach positive cable to starter solenoid battery cable terminal. Use a remote starter switch attached between the positive terminal and the start terminal on the solenoid, or just jump it with a screwdriver. If intake/induction installed, hold throttle open. Put compression gage in first spark plug hole. Turn engine over for a few cycles until the cylinder pressure gets to a max value (usually 3 to 5 compression cycles). Record cylinder # & pressure observed, release the pressure on the gage, repeat on the other 7 cylinders.

After you've done all 8 cylinders, repeat except put a few teaspoons of engine oil through the spark plug hole before doing that cylinder, turn the engine over a couple of times before putting the gage in the spark plug hole, record the readings as above. Put the oil in the cylinder just before testing that cylinder.

 

Ive seen engines sit outside, exposed to the elements and then still run.

 

I have personally started and run a Ford Flathead that sat at least 30 years before I got it. Smoked a bit at first because the rings were stuck, but once they unstuck, it ran fine. We let it soak a few weeks with ATF in the cylinders to free up any stuck pistons before we tried starting it.