Hello Third Geners. Just joined and thought I'd introduced myself and of course seek some guidance. I just acquired a 1991 5.7L Z28. It has 85,000 miles on it and has been sitting for 9 years in the last owners back yard of course it has not been started since then. The engine bay looked pretty bad covered in dirt and grass, upon cleaning it i found that many of the wires were chewed by a rat including some hoses, two plug harness and the throttle cable. I have a pretty good idea on how to try to get the engine started from checking the fuel tank,pump to lubricating the engine with new oil and manually cranking it to flushing the coolant. What i am asking is where should i start? Should i focus on the engine harness? Or start prepping the engine for start? I really want to get this car up and running again. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

Welcome to the Board .

Many folks will have many different approaches to your situation , and here's what I would do ;

First things first , the engine has gotta turn in order to be able to run . Where this has sat for 9 years and was beset by vermin , the possibility exists that it could be stuck (sometimes called "sitting seized") So , the first thing I'd do would be to remove all 8 sparkplugs and shoot a small amount of oil into each plughole . Maybe use one of those "fogging oils" that are used for engine storage or something like that . Now I would grab the harmonic damper / accessory drive belt pully and see if I can turn it by hand (use heavy work gloves and a good grip . It should be able to turn provided you use enough muscle) . If it won't turn and is stuck from sitting you could try a socket/breaker bar on the harmonic damper mounting bolt and try to turn it that way . If it still won't turn , it'll need to be disassembled for a cleaning/analysis of why it is stuck . Now , provided the engine does turn and ain't stuck the next thing it'll need is all of the damaged wires/hoses replaced so that the volts , fluids , and vacuum are coming and going to the places they need to be . After it turns and is replumbed/rewired then I'd change out ALL of the fluids , engine oil , antifreeze , tranny fluid , Drain and replace the Gas in the Gas tank , and maybe even the power steering and differential fluids too , just for good measure . At that point , that it is free to turn , has intact wiring/plumbing and clean fluids , with a fresh set of sparkplugs and all filters new (oil , fuel , air , tranny ) I'd throw a good battery to it and turn the key ....

Hopefully , the happy sound of a running engine will be the reward for all of your efforts . If not , begin following basic troubleshooting procedures . Got fuel at the injectors ? Got Spark ? and etc till the problem reveals itself .

Now go get to it , and get that Z28 running

 

I have a thread going about a car that I am contemplating buying.
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech...guys-tell.html

Some good ideas in there from guys about what issues you might see.

Care to share how much you paid???

 

Thank you for the reply. I will tackle it this way then. I got plenty of time to work on this and in no certain rush to complete it, this will also help me save some money to invest in it as well and hopefully my efforts do pay off.

Thanks, read the thread, good info in there. I did get to see the bottom of mine and did see some surface rust luckily not rotting or pitting. Hope it works out for you if you get it. By the way i got mine for 800 it was the mileage and the fact that its only had one owner that convinced me. Hope my gamble pays off.