How to get an abandoned car running

So, you decided to ruin your life with a project car. Congratulations. Welcome to the club (it's fun, we have cookies). 

 Obviously, once you've slapped down the dollarydoos you'll be riding high on excitement to get this bucket of bolts running, but there's a few things you need to check before you bash a battery into it and swing off the starter motor. This is especially true if the car has sat around for a while without starting or moving. 

This is my good mate Drummo and the '67 Holden HR wagon he scored a bunch of years back. It had sat in a wrecking yard in Toukley on the NSW Central Coast for longer than it had been on the road.

When it came time for us to try to crank it into life a few years ago there was a bit of procedure to go through to ensure it wasn't going to chew itself to bits - we got it running (despite the lure of delicious adult cold snacks and BBQ meats) and so you can definitely get your nugget firing.

First things first, you're going to need a good, brand new battery, a battery charger, a small jerry can of fresh petrol, new spark plugs and ignition system parts (see below), a fresh fuel filter (and fuel pump if its an EFI car), plus new oil and oil filter are a good idea too. A case of throttle body cleaner and degreaser, rags, stuff to clean an engine up, plus basic hand tools are all needed, plus a timing light.  It sounds like a lot, but it's actually not too much stuff.

After a car has sat for a few months the oil will have drained back to the sump and components which require lubrication will potentially be dry. Metal on metal is never a good time, so the first order of business is to ensure everything is slippery and ready to party.

Below is the old Holden 6-cylinder in Drummo's HR wagon, but this is after we splashed a bunch of fresh mineral oil through the valvetrain. The idea was to lubricate anything that relied on a film of oil to spin, and we also gave each of the rockers a wiggle to ensure there weren't any catastrophic mechanical issues that would kill the engine as soon as we fired it (bent pushrods, loose rockers, etc).

If you're getting an abandoned car running check the dipstick to make sure there is actually oil in the engine. So long as there is oil in there, pull the spark plugs out, and whip the rocker cover off so you can see the valvetrain. If the engine is really crusty and dry it's likely the piston rings will be stuck to the cylinder bores, so it's a good idea to squirt some auto trans fluid (ATF) through the spark plug bores. 

Once you've poured some oil through the valvetrain (and potentially the bores), stick a socket and breaker bar on the crank bolt so you can turn the engine over by hand. I also like to pull the accessory belts off the power steering, alternator, water pump and A/C compressor (if it has them) just to reduce the parasitic drag for when you're barring the engine over by hand. 

When you spin it over the engine will likely have a few sticky points as the rings free up. You'll want to spin the engine until it turns smoothly by hand. If it doesn't, you should stop working on this engine and get ready to pull it out and tear it down to fix it properly. 

Ideally you can put an oil pressure gauge on the outlet of the oil filter housing and spin the engine over on the starter with no plugs and no fuel fuel in it, just to get the oil pressure up before you kick it in the guts, but that isn't always possible.

It can also be common with old V8s to modify a 2nd hand distributor so it can be fittedto a drill, and that is used to spin the engine over at speed and get the oil system primed. This is most common on fresh builds, but making an oil priming tool is easy and a quick way to safeguard starting a long-abandoned motor. 

I madew the one pictured below to prime the oil pump in my Pontiac V8 and it worked exceptionally well for something knocked up in a few minutes out of an old distributor, a cheap socket and an eBay MIG welder. 

Sometimes old engines that have sat for a long time will require the carburettor to be pulled down and cleaned out with throttle body cleaner (also known as aerosol acetone). This isn't always the case and you should remember carburettors will need gaskets to put them back together, and you may have to deal with stripped bolts if you try to pull these systems apart, so have a good look at the carb and work out if you think it is in good enough condition to get away without rebuilding.

If you can't rebuild the carburettor you could get by removing the carburettor and spraying a flammable aerosol down the throat of the intake. The engine won't run like a banshee, but it will cough to life and you'll be able to hear if it's knocking like a Jehova's Witness after a bag of Columbian high-grade, and therefore ready to be relocated into the nearest skip bin.   

Once you've got the engine spinning you should put a timing light on the engine to make sure the engine will actually fire. You don't need the engine to be running to use it, but it can be a good idea to have the battery connected to a charger so you don't flatten it while you're cranking the engine - this will also let you make changes to the engine's timing so you know it will run properly once you do kick it into life. 

Have a look at the spark plugs you've pulled from the car. I normally suggest smashing a set of fresh, cheap copper spark plugs into the engine. Old ignition systems struggle at the best of times, so I'd be prepared with a new rotor button, ignition leads, distributor cap, and points (if your car is a genuine old school classic). 

You want to give the engine its best chance to fire and run properly so, while you can superglue ignition parts together so it runs, sometimes it is easier to buy some of these parts up front and be ready to swap them out. I did precisely this with the BMW E34 535i project I have had sitting around at my parent's place (sorry guys) for a few years now. 

All up it cost a few bucks to give the engine a service and replace some common wear parts in a morning, but it meant i wasn't chasing rough running problems when I did put a fresh battery in and crank the big M30 6-banger to life. 

One of the key parts I replaced was the rotor button. This is a wear item in old ignition systems, just like distributor caps, ignition leads and all those other parts. 

Now, below is one of my E30 BMW projects and this was a bit of a stickier situation. This engine had sat around for a couple of years before I got to fitting it into this car, so it required a bit more work than an old carburettor-fed V8 - injectors get sticky, valve tolerances are tighter, there are sensors to consider, timing belts to replace, and more.

Having sat in a dry workshop the stock Bosch injectors were gummed solid and had to be fully rebuilt before the engine would fire. EFI cars which have sat for a long time will normally also need a new fuel pump and fuel filter before you can even consider cranking them into life. 

If you try firing the car and you get grinding noises or a high-pitched whir you might have a starter motor with a sticker stator. This is where the toothed nose of the starter motor shoots out to engage the flywheel or ring gear, as its meant to, but then can't disengage once the engine is started. 

Sometimes this can be cured with a swift hit from a hammer on the body of the starter motor. Other times you may need to get your starter rebuilt. Either way, if your engine is running that's mission accomplished here and you can now get onto all the other fun jobs to make the car move like checking wheel bearings and brakes, working out why you have 4 neutrals in your transmission, and more.