How about pre-soaking the cylinders in penetrating oil??? I bought a 1976 Aspen that had been sitting for 8 months in our rainy Seattle weather. Before even trying to rotate the crankshaft, for fear of breaking piston rings rusted to the cylinder walls, I pulled out all the spark plugs and heavily fogged inside each cylinder with penetrating oil blasted in with an air nozzle. I used a full can of PB Blaster, and my little portable air tank with an air nozzle to carry the PB all through the cylinders, around exposed valve stems, etc. Then I walked away. Came back the next day and did the same routine over again. Third day I put a socket (?? or some tool?) on the crankshaft and rocked it gently back & forth to loosen the rings. With the spark plugs still out, I finally cranked the engine over with the starter, vigorously, to expel excess liquid from the cylinders. (This also pre-oils the engine.) I was concerned about a liquid-lock happening with the spark plugs installed. Fingers crossed, I installed the spark plugs and went through the actual starting process. When it finally started, it fogged the neighborhood for about 15 minutes. We ran that /6 engine in a daily driver for about 8 years.

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"Louise", a 1976 Dart Custom project, (now sadly reverted to being just an "organ donor" to our other project Darts.)

Nice story. They can be brought back from long dead cars...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Yep, that's the legend of the slant six! I cranked up my brother's long dead rusty Dodge that had sat for 7 years. I put new fuel in it, hooked up a battery, and in minutes it was running. Topped off the fluids and drove it a few feet (one of the drum brakes was locked up or I would have gone around the block).

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If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.