Sitting for 20 years?
07-14-2009, 10:07 PM
#1
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: South Jersey
Posts: 96
Sitting for 20 years?
Quick question. Someone asked me about buying their 68RS that has been sitting in a garage for 20 years. Other than obvious things like battery and tires (and the shirt list of things they know were not working) any thing to look out for besides "uh-oh sitting too long should need a complete tear down and rebuild"?
07-14-2009, 10:51 PM
#2
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Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: Little Rock, AR
Posts: 27,709
It should be considered that anything sitting that long would need to be completely gone through. That might not be the case (depending on storage circumstances), but it should not be a surprise, either. I recently cranked up an engine that had been sitting for about 10 years. Seemed to run as good as ever. YMMV.
07-15-2009, 10:31 AM
#3
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Friendswood, TX, USA
Posts: 3,769
Are you talking about just the engine or the whole car?
All the rubber parts are probably going to need replacement. So: fan belts, carb. rebuild, fuel pump (diaphragm is probably shot), hoses, Dist. may be rusty and the vac. advance diaphragm, ect.
As for the engine itself, you may be surprised. Pull the plugs and check for water in the cylinders, bore scope them if you can. At the very least squirt a little oil in each cylinder before you try and start it.
For the rest of the car, the main concern are the brakes. The master and wheel cylinder are probably rusted and/ or not working.
Never know, you might get lucky!
All the rubber parts are probably going to need replacement. So: fan belts, carb. rebuild, fuel pump (diaphragm is probably shot), hoses, Dist. may be rusty and the vac. advance diaphragm, ect.
As for the engine itself, you may be surprised. Pull the plugs and check for water in the cylinders, bore scope them if you can. At the very least squirt a little oil in each cylinder before you try and start it.
For the rest of the car, the main concern are the brakes. The master and wheel cylinder are probably rusted and/ or not working.
Never know, you might get lucky!
07-16-2009, 02:01 PM
#6
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Lincolnton, NC
Posts: 326
Last year me and a cousin fired up another cousin's 72 Nova that had been sitting for 17 years outside in a field. It had run out of gas and he never fooled with doing anything with it. Just parked it and left. After we had to bypass the ignition switch (tell me how that went out while sitting) She fired right up. You cant kill a good sbc.
07-17-2009, 08:51 AM
#7
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: STL
Posts: 915
My 67' sat for 8 years, fired right up and ran great. We decided to tear the entire engine apart to check the cylinder walls ( heard they may start to rust a little ) and everything looked better than we expected (no rust) 
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