spring start up

every spring I struggle with this dillema.........its been sitting since Nov and not started.......batt has been on trickle all winter.....fluids were fresh before hibernation.

what do you do?

I start mine every so often, in theory to avoid the dry cylinder concern.

You could disconnect the ignition coils and turn it over a few times to get oil to the cylinders, but of course you are still cranking it on dry cylinders just not with the same load as if it were running.

If you are really concerned, you could plug the spark plugs to put oil in each cylinder (and be ready for the oil smoke on start up.

In hindsight you could do what I used to do with my boat motor before winter, that is misting it with marvel mystery oil.

Just my unsophisticated thoughts

Stan.Shaw@Excell.Net;4022 wrote: I start mine every so often, in theory to avoid the dry cylinder concern.

You could disconnect the ignition coils and turn it over a few times to get oil to the cylinders, but of course you are still cranking it on dry cylinders just not with the same load as if it were running.

If you are really concerned, you could plug the spark plugs to put oil in each cylinder (and be ready for the oil smoke on start up.

In hindsight you could do what I used to do with my boat motor before winter, that is misting it with marvel mystery oil.

Just my unsophisticated thoughts

thx stan...........I used to fog my motorcycle engines before storage but was led to believe that with modern synthetic oil technology that wasn't necessary.

I'd just start the damn thing! My cars have sat around during our long summers for that long... I just don't let it bother me to much... My R/V sometimes sits for a year at a time w/o being started...never ran great though, so you wouldn't even notice if something was wrong! LOL!

With a stock engine Malcolm I do not think it is as critical to worry.

But

The cylinders, mains, rods and cam journals will not have an abundance of oil on them.
My main concern would be the bearings and not the cylinder.

Not the cylinders because;
remember when you had it apart with the head off and you would wipe the cylinder clean, then roll the crank to wipe the next cylinders, then roll it and the 1st cylinders had a oil streak that had been stored in the ring lands.
Thats why
There is lots of oil stored in the ring lands that will oil the walls as soon as the pistons move.

On a race engine or one of critical design like ours (full aluminum)
I would clamp the T-belt to the cams, loosen the tensioner, remove the oil pump nut and gear
(careful to maintain belt position and maybe C-clamp to crank gear as well)
then I install the nut and use my heavy duty snap-on air ratchet (not a gun) to prime the pump.

It started, died, I fixed it and its purring.

I did put a little oil in the cylinders and pulled the fuel pump fuse to spin it over without the engine firing. Put the fuse back and it started like I parked it yesterday........then it died as in quit like the key was turned off.

Tried a few things before I thought of the battery terminals and yes one side of the positive was loose.....quick tighten and alls good

Now if the snow would just melt :rolleyes:

That is the best I believe. Just start them every 4-6 weeks.

It seems there is a lot of different opinions on this subject. I've read a lot of threads on RL and RW on what is best. I've come to the conclusion that letting it sit until you can actually get it up to full operating temp. for a while is the best thing. No periodic starting and letting it just idle. It doesn't get hot enough to burn off the water. That made the most sense to me, so that's what I've been doing.

That is a very good point Rick and very true.
In the manual it says not to warm them up by idleing them (think its hard on the cam)
And yes the oil has to get hot to vaporize the water and burn the it off.

If you cant warm the engine through idling when can you drive?

My car wont drive until its ran for a min of 5 mins......yes, the intake has to come off, again:mad:

malcolm;4054 wrote: If you cant warm the engine through idling when can you drive?

My car wont drive until its ran for a min of 5 mins......yes, the intake has to come off, again:mad:

Sounds like a cousin to my saga. Had the intake refresh done and then it suddenly started running poorly. Turns out a $20 hose had been re-used rather than replace. Made no sense since I replaced everything (@$2k in parts as I recall) with the intent of ending up with a reliable car. It still doesn't run right. I am really questioning the Magencor ignition wires, as I have replace coils, control units, plugs, caps & rotors. I even have the IMR bypass relay in.

What I decide not to work on myself, I take to a shop that I respect, not the same shop that did the work the first time.

Sorry about the vent.... I do have the right attitude though, I didn't think I would get a GT but I have one, and don't ever envision selling it. Whatever it takes to fix it, I will get done

I've now started the car a few times and the same issue it had when parked remains and somewhat worse than ever (hardly surprising as I didnt do any work over the winter).

The issue: from overnight cold the engine starts but stumbles slightlys at what seems on all 8 cylinders. It also sounds as if its sucking air from somewhere under the intake. After a good few mins of running the sucking sound disappears at the same time the engine smooths out. Of interest the warm smooth idle is approx 900 rpm. This condition remains until the engine is parked for many hours and is again stone cold. Performance of the car is very good.

Last year I removed the fuel rails and injectors thinking I may have had a bad oring but all are good so I'm now left with pulling the intake again to further search for mysterious air leak.

Pervious intake refresh competely replaced all hoses and gaskets , cleaned/rebuilt the injectors, cleaned and checked the ISV operation, checked TPs etc etc

I started removing the fuel rails and will report progress on a new thread.