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This is a bit late, but Im posting my spring dustoff reccomendations. We have a very dramatic but temporary warmup in the east here... Keep in mind that if the salt hasnt been washed off your roads yet, the worst thing you could do is drive on them when its in the 80's out. Keith Removing your car from Storage and Starting it By Keith Park 3/1/02 Its that time of year again... Snow has melted off and its time to remove your classic car from storage. Or is it? In those areas that salt the roads its good to make sure those snow banks have all melted down, a snow bank that is wetting down the road is doing so with a heavy concentration of salt, not something you want to drive your classic through. A good rule of thumb is to have all the snow banks gone and a good inch of rainfall before venturing out, especially if the roads are wet, salt tends to reside in the cracks and potholes for a long time and needs a real good rinsing If your car has been sitting for a long time, the oil has all drained down from the heads, oil cooler, and oil passages and evaporated from parts of the cylinder walls. Oil evaporates just like water, it just takes longer. Have you ever read the labels of the lighter weight penetrating oils? Some even warn you of this and is the reason why such products as WD40 are useless as a long-term lubricant. A lot of wear occurs if an engine is just started right up after sitting for a long period of time due to lack of lubrication. What to do?? Crank the engine over till the oil light goes out and just a bit more. This will reprime the oil system without the loads of running on the engine. To keep it from starting, Fuel injected cars can remove the connector from the trigger points, this will also keep you from dumping fuel into the engine. Carburated cars will have to remove the center wire from the distributor and ground it, and don't touch the accelerator or you'll flood it. This cranking will take from 10 to 20 seconds. The next thing to check is for fuel leaks, carbureted cars will have their fuel bowls full and fuel injected cars will be at operating pressure by now. Fuel injected cars should pay special attention to the injector housings themselves for leakage. No leaks? Reconnect things and start it up, being careful not to rev the engine till it has warmed up. The last things to check are that no mice have built a nest under your engine shrouding... get a good flashlight and look under there, are you getting good airflow? Does the thermostat open up properly when fully warmed up? Still no leaks? Check and inflate your tires and your ready to get on with another season of fun. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe? mailto:type3-request@vwtype3.org, Subject: unsubscribe