Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.61] on Friday, March 06, 2015 at 14:31:33 :
In Reply to: Re: With a new battery and fresh gas... posted by jerryinidaho [24.49.176.137] on Friday, March 06, 2015 at 14:24:01 :
I am continually amazed at how many things go wrong with any of my rigs that ran when I parked them 2 or 3 years ago. When you have something that's sat in the woods getting rained on and inhabited by mice since the old man went into the veterans home sometime during the Reagan administration, the fact that the grandson remembers hearing it run back in the day doesn't mean much. And I guarantee it needs more than the proverbial "battery and fresh gas".
Furthermore, if you just put a battery and fresh gas in it and start cranking, assuming the engine isn't seized, it surely has no oil on any of the parts that need oil, and you'll do irreparable damage if it does actually start. I learned that the hard way with a cute little 4-cylinder water-cooled Hercules flathead in a 1958 genset. It fired right up and then proceeded to chew up one rod bearing and the crankshaft under it. When I tore it down, there was no wear on the cylinders (the hour meter showed less than 100 hours) but one oil passage in the crank was clogged. Sometimes getting it running is just the beginning of the problems.