Thread: chev in storage for over 20yrs

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took this mtr/box out of my street/strip ford pop around 20yrs ago and its been sitting ever since.for the first few years i reg turned it over but for the last 10 its just been sitting in a shed .
what is everyones thought on squirting something in the bores and trying to turn it over or any other thoughts about getting it running again.
the carb(a 650 holley doublepumper has been rebuilt) an i have a rebuilt twinpoint mallory to go in it.
for what its worth i was running 10.9 at the drags with it- it was proffesionally built and it wouldn't really worry me if i had to pull it apart.but i don't want to throw a whole lot of money at it.
thanks mark

I pulled a 283 out of a car 25 years ago that had been regularly driven up to the day I pulled the motor. I drained the cooling system but left the oil in it. Then engine was stored in a dry shed and although the carburetor had been removed the intake was covered the entire time.

We pulled it out of the shed a couple of months ago to rebuild it. When I got the valve covers off the tops of the heads didn’t look too bad. On tear down I found the oil had turned into a gooey blob in the pan almost like a thick grease (when I turned the pan upside down it stayed stuck to the sump in the pan and had to be scraped out). The oil passages were also plugged with the same goo that had once been oil and although I never checked I suspect the pushrods were too.

The engine still turned over easily but when I got the heads off several of the cylinders had surface rust in them and when I got the pistons out 2 of them had badly stuck rings.

I was actually pretty surprised, I had always thought if I wanted I could just throw a carburetor back on and run it…….I’m glad I never tried.

I think if I were in your situation I would at least do a partial tear down (pan and heads) and see what things look like. Just my 2 cents.

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Cheap insurance to tear it down and check everything, beats the heck out of breaking a bunch of parts if something inside is bad!

Since it's sitting there and not in a vehicle I'd get it on an engine stand and do like Mike says. Drop the pan and maybe pull the heads before trying to turn it just to see what's there. If the cylinders look OK and you decide to give it a go then soaking the rings in some good penetrating oil or light oil like Marvel's Mystery Oil would be prudent before you start moving the crank. All that costs is a few gaskets and some time.

MMO in the cylinders for a day, then drain the oil the next, make your own decision from there.

problem is there are cylinders that were open to the exhaust. i have a fresh 460 that has sat of years but i know it will have to come apart to clean those cylinders up. if the exhaust were taped up it would be better . but then the worry will be the collapsed springs .

"......problem is there are cylinders that were open to the exhaust. i have a fresh 460 that has sat of years but i know it will have to come apart to clean those cylinders up. if the exhaust were taped up it would be better . but then the worry will be the collapsed springs ......"


Yeah, it's one of the reasons I like to get them running as quickly as I can after I build them. I built the HEMI for the 37 Dodge at the same time I did the one for the 57 Plymouth back in 2006. That one got put on the engine test stand and is run at least every 6 months .........always brought up to full operating temp then shut down by running all the fuel out of the carbs.

For the little 283 my Grandson and I are building I've already modified a storage stand I've had sitting around and dug up a radiator so we can do the break-in and exercise it once in a while till it goes in something.


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ok. thanks everyone
i figured as much but was looking for an easy way out.
will take pictures as i go.

I've found that the humidity level of your area and or the storage area play a bigger role than most would think. The higher the humidity level the worse the parts inside will get a coating of surface rust and that can turn into a fatal run. I'd just pull it down to check just in cae. It really stinks to get it in and have to pull it all back apart to fix it. Been there.