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Before starting the engine I was thinking of pressure feeding oil into the engine and putting oil down the cylinders and turning it by hand. I turned the engine about a quarter turn by hand and it seems a little stiff. the engine was supposed to be rebuilt and run but the restoration was never finished and its been sitting a long time. Should I do anything else?

As a start, remove the spark plugs and put an ounce or two of Marvel Mystery Oil in the cylinders and let the engine sit for a couple of days.

You should also remove the oil pan and clean it out and change the oil and clean the oil pump pick up. Then turn the engine over by hand gently and see if there is much resistance. If the engine feels smooth, then clean the points, put in new spark plugs and rig a small one gallon or so fuel tank to the carburetor, as the main tank and most likely the fuel lines, will be full of gunk, and you don't want to pump anything from it into the carburetor.


You'll need a fresh battery and you should clean the battery cables to ground and to the starter. Check the tail pipe to see if it was plugged to keep mice or packrats out of the exhaust and exhaust manifold.

This is sort of a minimum and others will no doubt ad other cautions. Good Luck, Ernie in Arizona

Just to add to Ernie's good advice, when rotating the engine by hand make sure you can smoothly complete at least two complete revolutions before turning over with the starter motor.