Looking at buying an early 90s Accord, the car is just a rolling shell right now but the guy said he has a running swap he'll throw in with it. Any ways to check the engine outside of the car to tell if it's good?

 

Check gaskets see if there any oil around the gaskets or if they look decent
Try and turn the crank with a socket and ratchet
Check oil for milky white stuff
See if theres calcium build up on the motor that will tell you if it's been sitting a while

 

pull the valve cover and hope for a gold color, not a brown color.

 

Thanks guys.

 

It is possible to compression test it with a good air ratchet. You can also do a leakdown test.

 

the best way to check

 

if the engine is still attached to a transmission its even easier to compression test it with a 12 volt batter and the starter!

you can also do a leakdown test.

 

oil leaks
look inside the filler cap and see if there is any sludge
look under the filler cap for a lot of white residue...this indicates a bad head gasket. sometimes a little white residue is normal.

 

I always like to ask for the vin # of the car the engine came from (some have the vin on them), then run a carfax. The carfax will (hopefully) tell you when the car was last inspected, sometimes it tells you a service history, etc, etc.

I've have more then a few junkyards advertise "150,000 miles!", only to have carfax uncover that it was last inspected at 280,000.