trying to fire up 235 (little long)

[vintage_car]

Guys, I have a 235 engine in my 1950 chevy and have no clue how long it has been sitting...this is what I have done so far, removed flywheel cover and moved flywheel manually. It rotates good. I pulled the distributor and made a tool to go into the slot on the oil pump and spun it with my drill. After some spinning some clear liquid (my guess- water) came out of the top of lifter 4 and 5, then oil came out. oil eventually came out of 3, 4, 5, 6 lifters then oil began to spill out of the oil filter canister. I stopped spinning the oil pump when that happened. new condensor, points and rotor button installed on the distributor. I set the point gap to .022. New 12V external resistor (no resistor hooked up), 12V battery, 6V starter from an old 216. Marked the flywheel bb and lined it up with the pointer on the sight hole. Installed the distributor cap and put the plug wires in the 153624 order. Checked spark off the coil, and it was good and strong. spark to the wires was good too. I do not have the radiator hooked up, so no coolant, and the fuel lines are not installed either.
My questions...
I just want to hear it sputter to let me know this thing does have life in it before going any further. The water that came out...should I be concerned about it for initial fire up. I will not be running this engine long at all, no more than a minute. Do I need coolant? Should I be concerned about the oil spilling out of the oil filter canister and no oil coming out of some of the lifters? what else am I missing. I don't want to do more harm than good on this engine, so I'm open to your questions/suggestions.

[Russell Ashley]

You will probably get some different opinions on this. Based on your description here's what I think I would do. This assumes that you have pre-lubed the cylinders and turned the engine over through a complete revolution and there is no grinding or hard spots.
If oil is pouring out of the filter canister you would obviously need to correct that first, along with anyother external oil leaks. There will be a lot more oil flowing when you start it than when priming it with a drill, so it would make a big mess pretty quick. I don't think it's a good thing to run an engine at all with no water in the block. You can block off the lower hose and fill the block and that will suffice for a short test run. Then I'd give it a shot of starting fluid and see if it will fire up. It will die immediately but that will tell you if it will start. If it starts with the starting fluid then you can rig up a gas line to the carb and do a longer test. It might "rattle" a little when you first start it but should quieten down pretty quickly. Don't keep running it if it doesn't smooth out and quieten down. I don't think I'd worry about the small amount of water since you will change the oil before you run the engine for any length of time anyway. Expect it to smoke when you first run it but depending on the condition of the rings this may or may not clear up.
Good luck with it. it's always fun to hear and engine wake up for the first time after a long "nap".

[vintage_car]

the battery I am using is a 12V deep cycle marine battery, when I was turning it over with the starter a few times the coil got very hot. Is this do to the cranking amps from the battery or something else? What is a suggested 12V battery to use?
Resolving the overflowing oil canister...what do I need to look for as the culprit to this issue.
How do you prelube the cylinders? Is this just a shot of oil down each plug hole?

[Russell Ashley]

The battery is OK and wouldn't have anything to do with the coil getting hot. Is it a 6 volt coil with 12 volts being applied? If so, and you leave the ignition switch on for long it might (probably would) get hot. Check to see if the points are opening. Only when the points are closed is there current through the coil to heat it up. When the points are open there should never be any current through the coil even with the ignition on.

The filter cannister is overflowing? Do you have the lid on it and tightened down? If it's damaged or has rust holes you can just block it off until you get the engine running. Those type filters are marginally usefull anyway.

Pre-lube the cylinders with oil, as you mentioned, by injecting it through the plug holes. Just be sure to get enough in the cylinder to completely surround the piston so there's no dry spots on the walls. I would do this even though you've been spinning the engine over already. The oil makes the rings seal better and gives it more compression. It will definitely smoke when it first starts up.

[vintage_car]

it is a 12V coil. the points/current through coil theory how can I test that with a multimeter?
The lid is on the canister tight, no rust. not overly concerened for a quick fire-up, but will have to be addressed if it continues.
I will get more oil in those cyl. to ensure coverage.

[enick72]

Not sure what the 12v bat will do to a 6v system but your points should be set at .019 for new and .016 for used. If the coil is getting really hot it could be due to the 12v bat.

Mine had been sitting for 33 years. I made sure it would turn over, pulled the plugs and sprayed combustion chamber cleaner into all the cylinders and let it sit for 1/2 the day. I then changed the oil, plugs, cap, rotor, points and condesor. I also removed the carb, fuel filter and fuel pump to clean and reinstall. I installed a new 6v bat and began to crank engine. It took a while but fired up .

[Russell Ashley]

Your filter cannister must be missing a gasket in the lid, or the gasket is hard and broken.

I re-read your first post and you said that you do have spark, and that would indicate that the points are operating, so dis-regard my comment about the points not opening. I didn't exactly understand your comment regarding the resister. You said "no resister hooked up". Is it a new 12 volt coil? If so, is it for a vehicle that uses a ballast resister? If the coil is for an application that uses a ballast resister it is essentially a 6 volt coil. A full 12 volts is only applied to the coil while starting a vehicle that uses a ballast resister.

[vintage_car]

it is a new 12v coil...the coil has printed on the side "use external resistor". I don't have a resistor hooked up though, I never bought one.

Would spraying combustion chamber cleaner be the same as oiling it?

[enick72]

I used combustion chamber cleaner in hope that if there was anything stuck (rings and such) that things would loosen and not stay that way or break. Not sure if anything was stuck or not but everything worked out fine. this would help but not as good as oiling the cylinders. Remeber if you put oil in the cylinders to crank it over a few times before putting the pugs in, the last thing you want to do is hydrolock a cylinder and bend a rod, I've seen this too many times.

[magicoolbus]

You can plug off the external oil canister filter. They were options, many don't even use them. Just find a pipe plug and block the inlet and outlet on the side of the block.

Here's a shot of the side of my 235.

[raycow]

Originally Posted by vintage_car

it is a new 12v coil...the coil has printed on the side "use external resistor". I don't have a resistor hooked up though, I never bought one.

Get the resistor. It is bad for both the coil and the points if you don't have one.

Ray