Starting T-Type After LONG Term Storage

87_TX_T-Type

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2016
First post to the forum, but I've already found some great information in the new owner thread.

Anyway, I inherited my father's '87 Regal T-Type which has been in storage for about 6 years, and I recently brought it home to get it running again. He was the original owner, and took truly immaculate care of the car. Of course after 6 years it's not a great idea to simply fire it up, so I've been prepping it for re-start.

I could use a little advice so I don't miss something critical and cause some type of damage.

Thus far I've removed the spark plugs, squirted some ATF in the cylinders, and had no trouble turning the engine over by hand.

Next I plan on changing all the fluids and filters, in addition to replacing any cracked vacuum lines.

Someone suggested that I remove the turbo and blow air through it... any thoughts? I'm a little reluctant to remove any major components if there is not an obvious problem.

After all this, intend to simply bump it with the starter with the plugs out and fuel pump fuse pulled.

Any advice would be appreciated... here are some pictures in the meantime.

View media item 253View media item 249View media item 246
 
New fuel pump. It might fire up with the old one...but at WOT not supply enuf fuel. Look at it as cheap insurance for a new one. Fresh gas when reinstalling the tank.
Pull the cam sensor and prime the engine.
New fuel filter.
I'd likely open up the brake bleeder screws and 'replace' the old brake fluid...from a safety stand point.
When it fires up keep a close look at leaks. The hoses and seals may have dried out over the years.
If you're in a cold climate...change the antifreeze.
 
Last edited:
I'd replace ALL the hoses, tywrap the vac lines, stat, clean the rad, pull that intake hose off, and see how many places it's worn thru. While it's off, clean the MAF, the t/b, clean all elec connections.
Have the injs cleaned.
 
Thanks guys. Without a doubt ALL the fluids and filters will be changed. That's a given.

I have read before about priming the engine, but can't seem to get any further detail. Someone suggested a specific tool that turns the oil pump through the distributor... except there's a coil pack on this car - not a distributor. (Am I a missing something here?)

Will turning the engine over by hand then performing a starter bump (no plugs/fuel) be sufficient to prime? Right now it is turning over freely by hand.

Any thoughts on removing and blowing out the turbo before starting?

Thanks!
 
Bout a year ago RC told me his procedure for starting a car that has sat for an extended period, I forget much of it but one thing that stuck was he fills the motor with about 20 qts of oil, drains then refills with new.
 
Bout a year ago RC told me his procedure for starting a car that has sat for an extended period, I forget much of it but one thing that stuck was he fills the motor with about 20 qts of oil, drains then refills to proper level with new.
 
Yes, prime the pump, mine loses prime over the winter storage. Prime it, crank the motor over by hand to get oil to all bearing surfaces. Run for a few minutes and change the oil.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 
Yes, prime the pump, mine loses prime over the winter storage. Prime it, crank the motor over by hand to get oil to all bearing surfaces. Run for a few minutes and change the oil.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
Heres the problem with long term storage. All the mating surfaces are completely dry from a protective oil film. Priming the engine with the cam sensor removed is not a bad idea unless there is a chance the person doing it might not get it back in right first try. This means that they will be cranking the engine excessively to no avail till they get it set right. Here is the big problem. Yes the engine might start if they get it right and the bearings will be lubed. But think about the cam and lifters. There is no pressurized oil fed to the cam lobes and they are lubed by the oil slung from the connecting rods. No oil will cover these surfaces until the engine has already turned over quite a few times. The flat tappets are going to scrape under the tension of the valve springs. This can cause microscopic galling of the lifter faces that can likely lead to early cam failure. With all the cars i work on i have seen numerous cases of this happening. Oil is much cheaper than cams, lifters and whatever labor it takes to install them. It is complete folly to think that you are doing much good to "prime" the oil system when the components that do the most scraping will get zero oil. And what about the cylinders and rings? Even if you put a little oil in the plug holes you still have the lower cylinder walls that only get lubed by splash.
When we build engines we coat the all the contact surfaces (bearings and cam lobes) with "assembly lube". We usually dip the pistons in oil to coat them and the rings. If priming the oil system could accomplish this we could skip this critical step in engine building and count on priming to take care of things. A really simple solution is to overfill the crankcase with oil till the cam and lifters are covered which also happens to cover the lower parts of the cylinders and pistons.
If you have a nice car worth saving the 50 dollars you are going to spend on some oil is insignificant ! It doesn't have to be expensive oil. Most any oil is going to be better than none at all. I buy whatever is on sale at the parts store. Takes about 20 quarts to do this. Put it in quickly and drain it out right away to prevent any oil from seeping into the upper cylinders and causing hydrolock. I have done this numerous times and it works great.
 
....and whoever told you to remove the turbo and blow air though it...... I hope they were kidding.


What the hell will blowing air through a removed turbo do? (other than spin it up with no oil pressurizing the floating bearings). do they think a turbo is a Nintendo cartridge?
 
Last edited:
20qrts of oil is pretty overkill but I get it.

If the pump is run long enough oil will make it to the lifters and all the mating surfaces.

Rick
 
Hmmm... thanks for the info guys.

With regard to the turbo being removed, and blowing air through... I was pretty skeptical as well. Sounds like an opportunity to create more problems. What I will do is remove the intake, and see if I can rotate the impeller with my fingers. I presume if it turns freely and there is no play in the shaft - all should be good for an initial start.

As far as filling the engine with oil... this isn't the first time I've heard of the method. However, I'm already presumably "scraping" the dry surfaces when I turn the engine over by hand - so I'm wondering if it would be overkill at this point. It does rotate very easily, and the cylinders should now be coated.

I'm probably going to go ahead and fill the block, but let me pose one other option... what about simply removing the valve covers and drenching the valvetrain in oil? (My guess is that the new valve cover gaskets make this just as time consuming and no more cost effective than filling the entire engine.)

Looks like I'll be head to Walmart to buy some super cheap oil.

Thanks - I'll keep everyone posted.
 
This worked for me.... Take a peak down the gas tank filler neck, if it is rusty/nasty you will want to replace the tank. If it is ok you will still want to drop the tank and replace the fuel pump as mentioned by Scooby. Take off the gas cap when you drop the tank to miss the bumper filler but it will likely crumble anyway. Hotwire kit for the pump is a good idea too. Replace the fuel filter, fresh gas, unscrew core from schrader valve on the front of the fuel rail, get 8 feet of 3/8 fuel line and a hose clamp, place over schrader valve. Now put 12 volts on the grey plug that sits below the alternator, that will kick on the fuel pump at which point you should have put the other end of the hose in a gas can. Once you are happy that you have good clean fuel, remove the hose and replace the schrader valve core.
Remove the cam sensor, use an oil prime tool and a good drill, pretty sure it is clockwise (someone please chime in if I am mistaken) you will feel a lot of resistance when the pump primes, run it for a few minutes, for overkill you can rotate engine 90 degrees, prime, rotate 90, prime rotate 90 prime until your drill gets really hot. Follow write-ups for reinstalling the cam sensor. Caspers makes a real nice tool for this along with good instructions.
Blow any excess oil you put in the cylinders out with compressed air, reinstall spark plugs and fire it up!
Check radiator for leaks, sometimes the core will corrode when they sit up. Check coolant for oil and check oil for coolant.
Someone mentioned brake fluid, make sure you have good brakes and tires before anything serious...
Good luck!
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of the T! If you haven't yet, I would go to GNTTYPE.ORG look up "spring cleaning" it gives a lot of information about caring for our beasts.
 
First, I love your car. It's going to be awesome. My GN was setting for about 10 years (outside), so I know what you are going through. This is a great place to learn as you've found out. I'm just not kind of getting back into things.

Most of the things you are reading are good suggestions, but I believe are unnecessary to just start the car.

I've gained some expertise in the field because I like to resurrect cars and junk. My uncle, who taught me, has probably started 100s of engines that have sat for much longer than your car or mine. It's not as big a deal as people tend to make it out to be. He and I have disassembled them right after starting when the motor turned out to be bad, and using the procedure is the minimum that works.

Here's what I'd do at a bare minimum:

1. Look at the oil, make sure it's in there. See if it looks normal, I probably will Change it. If I know no water could get in then maybe not, if I was in a hurry. Oil was in the ground for millions of years so it's chemically stable, a few more years won't change it much :)

2. Make sure coolant is in the system. If not then don't run it long after it starts. Probably less than a minute. If you want to run it longer, water is OK for to replace the coolant the time being.

3. Smell the gas. If it smells normal it's probably OK. You can be safe and change the stuff in the tank. If you're worried that junk is in the tank, disconnect the fuel line and let the pump spit fuel into a bucket for inspection. My experience (I've done this many times) is that usually nothing is in there unless somehow water got in the gas, and then it will smell. If it smells bad, then back flush and clean out the whole fuel system. It's probably rusted on the inside and will be a PIA. From my experience gas lasts longer than people think and smells nasty when it goes bad.

4. Disable the ignition so it won't fire, crank it over to make sure the oil light goes out after a couple seconds. If not then prime it.

5. Fire it up



It might be a good idea to prime the oil first like people are saying, but my GN sat for 10 years and did not get primed and was fine, so that's my experience. Also, keep in mind that oil is not very volatile, so it won't just disappear into the air. My experience in pulling down motors that sat, well sealed for years like yours, is that your engine will still have about the same amount of oil on it as if it sat for a week. I've had a short block sitting inside covered since 1999 and it looks like I oiled it down yesterday. I check it now and then to see if it changes, it's kind of an ongoing experiment! So of course I think filling the block is a complete waste of time and effort.
 
Bout a year ago RC told me his procedure for starting a car that has sat for an extended period, I forget much of it but one thing that stuck was he fills the motor with about 20 qts of oil, drains then refills with new.
After the 10th quart or so, the additional courts would just pour out of the deteriorated rear main seal:ROFLMAO:

Nice car though! Enjoy it man. Wish my dad left me something like that.
 
FWIW, K-mart has some "private label" (with the "Starburst") oil in various weights that is frequently on Sale for a very good $$ deal

Good luck with your project.
 
Went ahead and added the 20 liters of cheap oil today... total cost of $50 from Walmart. Turned the engine over by hand (plugs out) a number of times, and it didn't feel much different than before. I'm sure the valve train on the driver's side got a good drenching given that I was dumping in more than a gallon at a time. Not sure there was enough to reach the passenger side, but I feel confident now that it will be a well lubricated re-start. No leaks either, so that's a good indicator the rear main seal is still in good shape.

Next it's...
- replacing any vac lines that are in rough shape
- inspect the turbo
- performing a bump start (no spark/gas) with just the starter
- draining the old gas, and testing the fuel pump

Any advice on vacuum lines that tend to fail, but aren't easy to see - please give me a heads up.

I'm going to dig around on the forum to see what I can find. Looking forward to posting a video of the first start.
 
As far as the vacuum lines just replace all them for about $20. The're generally are in crappy shape cause of the under hood heat anyways. All of them are in plain sight. Dirty old brake fluid can kill a powermaster so drain as much as you can but leave enough fluid so you don't have to bleed it. Fill to the line with fresh fluid. If your in the DFW area I can give you a hand if you want. Good luck and welcome to the board!
 
Went ahead and added the 20 liters of cheap oil today... total cost of $50 from Walmart. Turned the engine over by hand (plugs out) a number of times, and it didn't feel much different than before. I'm sure the valve train on the driver's side got a good drenching given that I was dumping in more than a gallon at a time. Not sure there was enough to reach the passenger side, but I feel confident now that it will be a well lubricated re-start. No leaks either, so that's a good indicator the rear main seal is still in good shape.

Next it's...
- replacing any vac lines that are in rough shape
- inspect the turbo
- performing a bump start (no spark/gas) with just the starter
- draining the old gas, and testing the fuel pump

Any advice on vacuum lines that tend to fail, but aren't easy to see - please give me a heads up.

I'm going to dig around on the forum to see what I can find. Looking forward to posting a video of the first start.
The egr valve and cracked headers also leak. Google "vacuum smoke machine" for info on how to use smoke to find leaks. BLM on a scan tool will tell you if you have a leak, too. Should be 128 +/- 10.
 
Top