joebmx

i am about to pick up a 94 civic from a friend who has left it sitting in the garage for almost 3 years now. It supposedly ran when when he parked it, though you wouldn't guess from the looks of it. Anyway I am about to take it off his hands for next to nothing, well exactly that, he makes bank and has afforded much nicer cars, why it has been sitting and is giving it to me for a bicycle, sweet deal.

My question is, what do i need to be thinking about when starting up a car that has sat for almost 3 years. Granted the battery needs to be charged/replaced and I will give it an oil change probably before I even start it up, but what else? should I treat the engine with something before putting in new oil, what does 3 year old oil look like/do to the engine? I know to check belts and fluids that's easy, how long do i run her for before taking her out on the road? Run her easy, a short trip around the block? Any thoughts you have would be great!

EusebioSam19

iTrader: (2)

well depends on how far your planning to get
into this, is it going to be your dd or you project car?

IP RACING

drain the gas tank and fill her up with fresh gas. and Id say might as well change your spark plugs clean your dizzy cap check air filter. and like you had already said check the rest of the fluids. .

joebmx

This is going to be a day to day car at most. I live in the city and get around other ways it is so I can get away. I don't know if I will be taking the car for sure seeing as I already have a car that needs lots of help. I really want t o make sure that when I take the car out for the first time, test drive, that I don't do any harm to the engine. Fresh gas is a great thought, air filter, i will peek in at the plugs and open up the dizzy.
IP when you say clean the dizzy, do you mean just to make sure there is a good connection happening on the cap and rotor or clean? Also, do plugs go bad? If they were new when the car was parked would they be okay?

Thanks


Modified by joebmx at 6:50 AM 9/6/2008

WhiteOnRice

I'd just do an oil change, coolant flush, drain gas tank, and get a new battery.

davefromPA

I always pull the plugs and spray some wd-40 or similiar on the pistons and let that sit overnight. Not too much but enough to loosen the rings. Before you turn it on and after the wd-40, pull the plugs and turn the engine by hand with a wrench. turn the steering wheel to the left and put the car in neutral. 17mm socket connected to the crankshaft. Turn it counter-clockwise a few times. This loosens the pistons.

Definatly get an oil change and flush and refill all fluids including gas. New plugs even if they were new three years ago.

A new air freshener is always good. And a good cleaning. Also, while the car is off move the throttle to make sure it doesnt stick.

94EG8

Alternator is probably seized by now, you can sometimes free them up hitting the pulley with the biggest flat bladed screwdriver you can find and a hammer. all the other stuff mentioned above as well.

joebmx

So I got the car going with little trouble in just a few hours. I let it Idle for about 45 minutes b4 talking it for a spin. Took it to the Firestone to air up the tires about 6 block s away, it drove fine, idled fine and then started to overheat on my way home. Th gauge was super erratic, I thought it was broke. But then the car had no power, so I knew the gauge was doing its job.
Apparently the car had the water pump replaced before it was parked but I have no idea why. I did have to add quite a bit of coolant to the radiator but never did drain it and refill it with fresh stuff maybe part of the problem. Any thing I should do or check to see why its overheating?

rd91sib18c5r

Sounds like it has a bad headgasket, easy way to check is with the car cold

take off the radiator cap fill with fluid leave the cap off and start the car,

if you see bubbles coming out of the radiator the headgasket is shot.

davefromPA

i was reading this yesterday... https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=2368736 <-- check that out. in the end it was his car not being bled properly. try it the way he did at the end of the thread and let us know.

joebmx

So here it is since all of you are hanging around your compys on a Friday night.....so i tried the bleeding technique and failure. Here is what I found while trying this.
I set the heater to hot, and let the car idle for about 15 minutes with the rad cap off. It bubbled a whole lot sometimes overflowing but never really settling down so I could put in more coolant. The fan never kicks on. for 20 minutes this thing idled and it never went, and the temp gauge is right in the middle. So I kick up the idle and notice some black stuff coming to the mouth of the radiator. It looked like oil but didn't feel like it on my fingers. Also,as soon as i turned the engine on it looked like there was steam or smoke coming out of the radiator mouth. the black stuff stopped showing up after a few minutes. Still the fan doesn't kick on, checked the fuse and it was good.

I take it for a spin and it was doing alright, it was climbing the hills of Seattle without a problem and then without warning or a creeping temp gauge the power in the car gets all funky, like I am out of gas, I turn the heater on and I get back a tiny bit of power and the temp gauge shoots up. It went from the middle to 3/4, in the blink of an eye, and kept climbing. I get her home, park it and still no fan.

I figure at this point it will at least need a radiator flush, it looks like there might be some buildup in there, as well as a fan. How do I test this thing. The AC fan works okay when I put on the AC but the fan on the radiator, how do i test it? Also what do you think the smoke is coming out of the radiator?
Lastly, the hose coming out of the top of the radiator, I don't know but it looks like it connects to the thermostat. If this is the case, how do I know the thermostat is good. The hose is hot and when the engine is warmed up, is hard to squeeze. Is this enough to say it is good or is this an indication of something entirely different.

Lastly, sorry,my old man tell me you can tell your t-stat is working when you can see the coolant rushing along in the radiator, I feel like you can't see any coolant becasue of the lip at the top of the spout. Is this a technique that is useful for this car or is he referring to cars from back in the 70's.

Thanks so much.

Joe


Modified by joebmx at 7:56 PM 9/12/2008

davefromPA

can you hook a direct source of power to the radiator fan and see if it works? i cant remember off the top of my head if firm is good or not. someone else chime in. 94eg8???? he is always helpful.


Modified by davefromPA at 8:42 AM 9/13/2008

94EG8

Connect the fan directly to the battery to test it. If it is the fan switch on the back of the block might be bad. The thermostat is actually where the lower rad hose meets the block. If you have oil mixed in with your coolant you either have a blown headgasket or a cracked head or block. The upper rad hose should be hot and hard to squeeze, the cooling system pressurizes when the car is running. Do a compression test and come back with some numbers, I think your head gasket is toast though.

joebmx

So I have never seen or done a comp test before and do not know if should be trusting the numbers I got. I think I may have missed something important, but here are the Numbers I came up with.
#1- 210, #2 - 190, #3- 180, #4- 190.
here are my concerns about the process....All plugs were removed while running the test,I used a remote starter to do this thing, no second person handy, while turning it over pulled the throttle as far as i could. I feel like I was missing something but don't know what. Also, I saw some disagreements in other posts about how many times to turn the car over, some said 4 revolutions, some 12, some said until the gauge stopped climbing. I waited for it to stop climbing which on #3 took a while because it went really slow from 150psi to 180psi. Also, on #4 as i posted earlier there is a pool of oil sitting on the piston. How could this affect the reading?
Lastly, when I was done I went back to #1 to try another reading and it would barely make it past 100psi even though earlier it climbed to 200 with ease. arg......

Joe





Modified by joebmx at 4:20 PM 9/13/2008

joebmx

I wired the fan straight to the battery and it worked just fine in both directions. I double checked the fuse and it is good, why might it not be turning on while the engine is running hot?

95dxsir2

check the fan relay circuits

joebmx

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 95dxsir2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">check the fan relay circuits</TD></TR></TABLE>

How do I go about doing this? I noticed the relay in the fuse box when checking the fuse but do not know how to check to see that it is working okay.

94EG8

I'm not entirely sure how accurate your numbers are, My guess is still blown head gasket though.

davefromPA

it really does sound like a headgasket. especially with the bubbles never stopping and the weird compression testing. get a leakdown test done to be sure.

thumper64

I would change the plugs and fuel filter after getting it running and adding new gas. I figure that the old gas will just foul your new plugs and clog the filter.