Re: Basic advice
Hi MR J,
I have been in the same boat as you are in. Reviving an A that which in my case was my fathers, and sat for 50 years, and me not knowing much.
A suggestion is to find someone that know As to guide you. I would have done a lot of things differently if I had known what I was doing.
Hopefully the below does not discourage you.
Lubrication that has been sitting that long is a bad thing. Drain the oil pan, pull the pan and clean it out, and clean the pump oil screen. Oil sitting that long turns to sludge. Enough sludge will block your oil pump. Pull the valve access panels and clean that out. You may want to change out your other fluids - Differential, transmission. Make sure to hit all lube points and grease fittings, especially the generator and distributor oiling, or you will probably ruin their bearings and have to rebuild or replace them.
Run some diagnostics. Compression test, Napa Block Test (for exhaust gasses in the coolant, overheating could be head gasket, cracked head or bloc)- about $45 No use worrying about the radiator until you know the motor is OK.
Install an upper hose coolant filter to filter rust/scale from migrating into and plugging up the radiator. You can buy them, or simply use panty hose in the upper radiator. The filter needs to be checked extremely often when de-rusting a cooling system.
Remove the Motor coolant inlet and outlet, use a borescope to inspect the motor coolant passages for rust/scale. Also use a borescope through the radiator hose connections to inspect upper/lower tanks for rust scale and the core tube openings.
Inspect where head bolts down to the block. After running hot inspect for dampness, or for a white powdery substance - indicates a miss-torqued head or warped head, or bad head gasket.
Use an IR Temp Laser gun, only costs $30 - $40 . With the engine warm/hot/running, take readings horizontally across the radiator tubes, 1st at the top of the core - all tube readings should be within a few degrees, then repeat for the across the middle of the core, then about 2 inches above the bottom of the core. If some tubes are cool compared to others, you have partially of completely plugged tubes.
With engine hot running take temp readings from the passenger side, on the head, close to each spark plug - readings should be very close to each other. Take readings on the block just below the head, where each cylinder is, do both passenger and drivers side of the block. The passenger side readings should be the same, the drivers side should be the same. This could be a multitude of issues. If the back (cylinder 4) is hot could be rust scale, they develop rust/scale usually build up there 1st. If other places only the block test may tell you bad gasket, cracked head/block, bad valves. Pop off the head.
If you do the preceding you will have a fair idea of what is needed, and what shape the Motor and cooling system is in, and what needs attention 1st
I suspect you will probably end up pulling the head at some point to replace the head gaskets, mine was bad which I discovered after 2-3 years of not wanting to pull it, should have had it done right away. I've been told it is common for them to go bad sitting, or gaskets that old go bad within a couple thousand miles due to age.
You also likely have lots of rust/scale in the cooling system.
This is not overly expensive to do, does not take a ton of time, but can save much time in the long run.
If performing flushing/backflushing there is tons of info buried in the threads. Some like using white vinegar, some like Evaporust/thermocure/rust911 because they are not caustic and do not need a baking soda/water flush to neutralize the acid from vinegar.
Whatever you decide make sure you have a coolant filter in the upper radiator hose.
Hopefully others on the Barn agree, I am not an expert, but this is what I have gleaned and understand from my personal experience.
Hope this is helpful to you and others.
Wade
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