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Anyone had any luck bringing an I8 back to life without a rebuild after sitting over 30 years?

I think BigKev did on his 1954 Clipper. See his blog.

Craig

I have revived a number of old cars that were off the road for 30 years or more. Most of them ran well.

My policy is to look the engine over carefully and assess its condition, look for missing or broken parts check oil etc.

Then try to get it running with the minimum changes. I assume the engine ran when parked and will run again. Usually it is only necessary to clean the points, clean the carb, and replace 1 or 2 parts.

Squirt some oil down the spark plug holes for a start. Try to turn the engine over by hand, but don't force it. If you can turn it 2 complete turns spin it with the starter and see if you get oil pressure.

Then check for spark, clean the points etc. until you get a good spark. Fill the carb with gas and give it a try. DO NOT trust the gas in the tank, disconnect the fuel line and connect a motor boat gas tank or the like.

Packards seem to be prone to sticky valves, at least the flatheads. In some cases you have to take the head off and do a valve job. But, you never know your luck. It may start right up and run grand for you. Sometimes they do.

Dear 8,

Not a difficult task. I used have them towed in, running, and towed back out the same afternoon. However, road worthiness is another issue.

Well guys, that is some great incouragement!

Craig, I read through some of BigKev's Clipper blog, there is a lot there. He did a great job on that car, so easy to get lost in the stories.

Rusty,
That's is great to hear, I think I am on track with what you are suggesting. The motor I have is a '54 327 out of a Cavelier I parted out here. I pulled the motor and could not get it to turn using a breaker bar on the crank with moderate pressure. I pulled the plugs, which was a chore, and sprayed some Sea Foam in each cylinder and let it sit for a week. After that I used a pry bar on the flywheel to turn it about three teeth, I was very excited to get that far. I then had to put the motor away for about a year while I was building our home.

Well I finally got to get the 327 out and start to work on it Monday night, it was great to get back to it.

I pulled the plugs again a carefully cleaned the plug recesses to keep all of the rust and dirt from getting into the engine. I then used a small tube and a syringe to get some Marvel Myestery oil on top of each piston. I popped the distributor cap off to watch the rotor and turned it over via the crank. It started to turn with a bit of pressure then got easier by the time I had one revolution. I cranked it over this way for about four full revolutions and it now seems to turn over pretty easy. I have the plugs just turned in a few threads and I could hear the cylinders huffing as I turned it over.

The oil pan had almost no oil in it, that is my biggest concern so far, no water came out though. I pulled the oil filter and it was nasty, literally sitting in muck. I will clean that out and try and pull the hard oil lines out and inspect them.

I cleaned the distributor greaser and put new grease in it and it looks fairly clean in there. I also pulled the Ultramatic off of the engine because I am swapping it with a three speed with overdrive.

I can't believe that torque converter, what a monster. I bet spinning that thing up took some HP.

I rebuilt the carb before I put the engine away for a year and will put that back on soon. I was hoping to use an electric fuel pump to test fire the engine.

I plan to drop in a new oil fillter, add some oil and cold crank it to see if it builds oil pressure. I will check compression at that time also.

I am going to put the motor in a hotrod I am building and am very excited to see that battleship like motor out in the open.

Tim,
I hope to get this motor running and then build a hot rod around it and maybe spend a summer fooling around locally with it. I would like to start collecting rebuild parts and do a rebuild on it over the following winter if all goes well. I would love to have this big eight running well enough to take some longer road trips.

Again, thanks for the encouragement, I will keep you posted.

An oldtimer showed me to put 50% atf 50% diesel in each cylinder and let it sit for several days. Try to make a quarter turn with the engine and put 25% diesel 75% atf in each cylinder and try to make another qtr turn after a few days and keep repeating that until the engine moves freely.
It worked very well!

Well there has been progress on the Thunderbolt.

I cleaned out the oil filter canister, the bottom was full of hard packed sludge, kind of was wondering if it could be lead deposites. While I had that off I pulled and cleaned the external oil lines and put in a new filter.

After that I built a quick gauge panel, put some oil in it, bolted up the starter and started to crank it over.

The oil started pumping right away, the oil pressure gauge line is semi see through and it only took a few seconds or the oil to work its way into the line. I went ahead and started checking compression on each cylinder at the same time and had good numbers on all but #3. & #5. The weird thing I noticed was that the oil pressure would build to 75 lbs by cold cranking, that did not make sense. I figured I had a blockage or somewhere.

I did not want to take the head off, but I knew I had a couple of stuck valves. So I put a small piece of plastic tube on the end of a syringe and filled it with some Seafoam. I made sure the valve was up by removing the engine side cover and went through the spark plug hole to try and get some oil on the valve stem. I don't think any valves were stuck all of the way up.

Anyways, to shorten this up, I got #5 to close all of the way by getting oil on the stem. Well at least that is what it looked like. When I went back to look at #3 it was hitting great on compression. I guess the movement loosened it enough to let it seat also.

With all of that said I will move on to start it.

Does anyone know what the 1/4" pipe thread port in the side of the block just in front of the starter is for? My engine had a 2" brass nipple in there with a "T" that had one port plugged and the other was adapted for about a 5/8" hose. I pulled the nipple off and it is impacted with rust, I dug around with several things and could not get it to clear.

Next is the carb and getting some water in the block.

That fitting is just the block coolant drain.

The weird thing I noticed was that the oil pressure would build to 75 lbs by cold cranking, that did not make sense. I figured I had a blockage or somewhere.


The "blockage" is probably a frozen or incorrectly set oil pressure relief valve on the oil pump.

Good call Owen, it makes sense that it would be stuck, I will check into it. Thanks.