Put some Marvel Mystery oil in each cylinder a few weeks ago, turned engine by hand. Started to today after only a little cranking. Sounds pretty good, has alittle tick. Surprised how good it idled, no smoke.Advice on what to redo, oil pan has leak so going to pull engine, going to check compression before pulling. Advice on what to redo, heads, water pump, belts, hoses, what are your suggestions if compression checks out. Tried to show video running but wouldn’t let me.Thanks
Very nice find. As far as the motor how many miles on the car? do you know the history? do the miles on the motor match the odometer another words not rebuilt? My suggestion would be to fully assess the motors health before touching it. as far as a compression and leak down test it can be misleading on a engine that has sat for a long time because of rings sticking and valves not seating fully because of rust. I always recommend to put as many heat cycles and miles on it that you can to give it it's best chance before doing those tests. Change fuel pump and all fuel line hose. make sure tank is not full of rust and stale gas n water. Rebuild carburetor, flush cooling system and replace waterpump and replace all hoses and belts and of course a full tune up. As far as the lifter tick it is common when a motor sits for a long period, if it won't quiet down add some marvel mystery oil to the crankcase as it has a high amount of detergent in it and will usually quite noisy lifters after a while. Also make sure when you change the oil to use high zinc oil or the separate zinc additive if you already changed it so as not to wipe out your camshaft. These are some of the things you do to resurrect a long dormant engine. As far as the oil leaks I would totally degrease and wash the engine and go from there as many a mechanic has been fooled into thinking they have an oil pan leak when it was something else up higher and gravity just takes it to the bottom.
94000 on odometer. Was told is original miles. Disconnected fuel line at fuel pump attached a length of fuel line and used a bottle filled with gas. I have changed oil but not with zinc so will get a zinc additive. How about timing chain , have read they have plastic teeth, change while doing water pump? Thanks for your advice
Good catch I was going to tell you how to check but forgot. as far as it being an original its very doubtful but I guess you never know. you can check the amount of stretch by removing your distributor cap and then lining up your timing mark and seeing the amount of degrees it moves before the distributor rotor moves. I can't remember the acceptable number but it is easily accessible on the net. You never know without checking as it could have been done 10,000 miles ago even if it was 1991. Get that zinc in there before you run it again I have seen cams get smoked very quickly on engines that have sat dormant for so long. Again very nice find you don't find them that original and time capsuled that well very often. Must have been stored in a nice dry garage. Also whatever you do to the car just remember it is only original once. One last thing if you do need the timing chain, when you pull the front crank vibration damper you don't need a puller there is a lot of misinformation out there on the web, it is not an interference fit. If it is a little stuck a little persuasion with a hammer on one side while you pull on the opposite side usually does the trick. Look for a groove where the seal rides on the snout if you can catch a fingernail in it then it needs a repair kit and you can get it through your local auto parts store.
I have a 67 with a 68 WZ unknown miles, I pulled the engine 10 years ago to clean it up and check things out, winter project. I flipped it over on the engine stand and pulled the pan, this is where you'll find out how deep you need to go.
I found about a dime size of graphite like material in one corner, the piston sides looked great and the cylinder walls looked like they had been just down, this motor had never been apart, like I say I don't know the mileage.
While it was out I did the timing chain, cam to 068, lifters, oil pump, I did not pull the heads.
The ticking you describe is probably the lifters, Pontiacs are known for a lifter tick and they were probably drained of oil from sitting, if you're pulling it out of the car it's nothing to pull the valve covers and intake and pan valley and take a peak and readjust them.
At the risk of sounding like a jerk I want to give some of my thoughts as a mechanic for a novice reading this in the future. It's best not to flip an engine upside down on the engine stand to remove the oil pan unless you are planning on completely disassembling the motor. Although a little more difficult you should take it off with the engine in it's normal position because you have no idea what small bits of timing gear or whatever are in there, as the heaviest bits end up in the bottom of the pan not in the filter. Once removed then you can flip to make things easier to work on. This goes for auto transmissions also as rolling it upside down while out on the ground may lodge debris in a hydraulic valve and ruin an otherwise working tranny when it was removed. Same for carburetors if removing to do other work don't flip and drain unless you are planning on a rebuild. These are some of the very basics I was taught (Or yelled at for) by experienced Mechanics when I was a pup. When checking the health of a motor the easiest and best way is to do a compression test a leak down test and check the oil pressure. If you remove the engine to check it's health before doing these you really need to do a full teardown and measurements otherwise just looking at it form the bottom will tell you almost nothing about the health of the engine unless their is obvious catastrophic damage. Most of the wear in a cylinder occurs on the thrust side near the top half of the stroke which is completely hidden by the piston when looking from the bottom of the engine. Even engines with high miles will show original hone marks near the bottom of the bore. Also there are no provisions for adjusting Pontiac valves from the factory other than making sure the rocker arm nut is torqued to the proper spec. If you want to make them adjustable you can buy an aftermarket product called poly lock or an equivalent to make them adjustable. I know many people have flipped there engines and trans (hopefully not while in the car) and ended up ok but why play Russian Roulette with your wallet and time if you don't have to.
