starting truck after sitting for years...

[12vsuburban]

I'm about to go try to fire up a truck I bought for the driveline. its a '92 250 auto that was wrecked a number of years back. Its just been sitting since. It had/has a half tank of diesel and none of the lines have been messed with. Someone stole a bunch of parts off the front of the motor while sitting out on my property unfortunately like the alternator/brackets, fan and wp, so Ill have to replace those, but I can still fire it up to see it run. Unfortunately they took the air filter too, so the turbo has been sitting without any protection, still under the hood, no water intside , but I assume the aluminum has corroded just a hair as I cant spin the turbo by hand by grabbing the shaft nut...;(...I plan on first just taking off the compressor housing and hoping where that is where it is stuck since that is just a couple clamps to get it off. I sprayed it down with thin oil last time I was out there...Ill clean it very carefully and put it back on if thats the culprit. ....any other things to do before trying to crank it up other than the typical oil level?

Thanks for the input...

[oldestof11]

I would pull the manual shut off on the injection pump and spin it a good 30 seconds after i get oil pressure.

[bmoeller]

Plug the oil supply port for the turbo and pull the turbo off. I wouldn't try to run it with it on there.

Get a water pump and put some coolant in it. I prefer to use straight water the first time and drain it, but if it is freezing out where you are, I'd use some anti-freeze.

Drop the oil and put some cheap 10-30 or 15/40 in it.

I'd pull the injectors out, and spray some fogging oil in the jugs. Let it sit over night. The cylinder walls will be bone dry. Hopefully not rusty. Just screw the injectors in by hand for over night. Then, I'd pull them back out before you try to spin it over. Make sure it isn't stuck. If it is free, put them back in. If not, get some pop (Pepsi, Coke,........) and pour enough in there to fill the piston bowl and to reach the rings all the way around. The citric acid in the pop will free the rings. Let it sit for about 1-2hrs and try again. Let the pistons blow out the excess pop. Once free, fog it again and put the sticks back in. Bleed and fire.

[PToombs]

Put a socket on the turbo nut and try to spin it gently. It may break right loose. You can start it without a water pump, but I wouldn't run it more than a minute or it will cook itself real quick. Hand pump the lift pump to get fuel up to it. It's not a bad idea to change the oil before you start it, to get rid of the old oil and any acids that have built up in it. Then spin it with the manual shut off pulled, or pull the wire to the solenoid to get some oil up in it. Then start it up!

[1992gen1_fan]

X2 on cranking the engine for 30sec before letting it start to lube it up. I'd pour a mix of engine oil and seafoam in the injector bores to free up and lube the cylinders. I'd also go ahead and replace the fuel filter, fill the new filter with Howes or a 50/50 mix of PowerService and outboard 2 stroke oil and don't use the fuel that has been sitting in the tank.

Do pull the turbo and check it out, pull the comp housing and make sure there is'nt debris in it. If it breaks loose and spins fine ect, pour some fresh oil in the oil inlet. Also would be good to change the engine oil and filter with cheap stuff for now.

[BobS]

If you want that "feel good feeling" then prelube the engine by using the garden sprayer with a quart of oil adapted into the oil filter housing where the pipe plug currently is screwed in.

If you want to SHORTEN your starter life by overheating the armature, then by all means crank it until you get oil pressure. Most of the 6BT's I've been around normally take at least two to three seconds of running at 1000 RPM before the oil pick up tube sucks up oil from the pan and builds pressure. Mean while you are squeezing the residual oil from between the bearings and the crankshaft.

There is a lot of Cummins powered farm equipment that sets around out there until it gets called for it's specific task sometimes on a yearly basis. The farmer doesn't prelube the engine. He goes out with a charged battery and just lights her off.

It's your engine. Those are your options. Oil sprayer prelube, or dry spin the crank bearings while overheating the starter, or just light her off and have oil pressure in a few seconds.

[12vsuburban]

So tell me more about pre-lubing through the oil filter plug? I assume it is on the pressure side and wont just bleed into the return fooling you into thinking you have pre-lubed? doesn't sound like a bad idea. Ill for sure yank the compressor housing and check everything. I'm hoping its just a bit of light corrosion between the aluminum wheel and housing. I'll clean it well and carefully.if it still doesnt spin with the compressor housing off, I know its the exh side and will yank the whole turbo. I'll begin by pulling the injectors and spraying some lube in the cylinders while working on the rest before starting. at mininum, regardless of prelubing or not, I might crank it first with the injectors out so it can spin without any compression or load on the bearings. Ill drain some diesel and see how it looks from the tank. I guess I could run a temp tank/jug with clean diesel and it would return to the tank and then the IP and lines/inj would have 100% clean fuel i them. I wont be running it long anyways since there isnt any cooling system. I just want to hear it idle and blip the throttle a few times to make sure its a decent candidate for my swap since Ive never heard it run. Its out on my property with no access to electricity or running water, soo hard to make a make-shift cooling system to run it longer. I'm going to try and collect my missing motor parts(If anybody has extra pieces mentioned please send a PM or eail) before I head out there so might have the wp and belt and everything back on before I crank it. I could try to at least loop the radiator hoses and fill with water so i can run it a bit longer and let it warm up correctly thorughout the whole block.
If I have the injector lines loose of off, can I use the priming pump on the lift pump to pump fuel all the way through the IP and out the lines?

[12vsuburban]

well crappola. I finally got out there to mess with the truck. seems the motor migh tbe locked up. The turbo was froze so I took it off intirely. I took it apart tonight bead blasted and cleaned everything and it is like new now, but there was lots of rust haze in the exhaust runners. I pulled the exh manifold as well. I shot a good bit of oil down the cyls that had open exh valves. I puled the intake pipe and it looked clean. I put a battery to it and just bumped the starter to see if it would budge(before I took all the stuff off)...but it just clicked, as in the starter sounded like it was engaging, but would turn it over at all. I'm contemplating pulling the head tomorrow..

[CumminsPower59]

Before you go ripping the head off, can you rotate the engine manually? I would try that first before removing the head. The starter motor may be corroded and rusted up..

[12vsuburban]

whats teh best way to turn them manually? just form memory they dont have a large bolt on the balancer you can use right, just the 3 bolts? I guess you could make a plate with 3 holes in it to go around the 3 bolts with a large nut welded to the center..I might try to yank the starter and see if it spins by itself..it could be the starter, even though it sounds like its engaging strong the brushes could be dirty. I know we had a flood come through and the water got high enough to submerse the starter probably.

[12vsuburban]

just went back and read that over stuck engine thread. I think I'll pull the balancer and put the bolts back in and carefully pry against those. much easier than pulling the starter right now out in the rain and mud. all the fron accys are already off, so easy to get to the balancer...

[CumminsPower59]

Usually, one can turn the engine over manually by using the alternator nut, but in your case you don't have that option. Another way is to borrow/buy the barring tool and turn the engine through the access plug on the right side of the transmission adapter plate. I guess one could turn the engine using one of the four crank bolts, but if it's stuck good, you could run the risk of snapping it off

If the flood water got high enough to submerge the starter, I would almost bet on that thing being rusted together...

[CumminsPower59]

just went back and read that over stuck engine thread. I think I'll pull the balancer and put the bolts back in and carefully pry against those. much easier than pulling the starter right now out in the rain and mud. all the fron accys are already off, so easy to get to the balancer...

That's a good idea, I have done it to turn a C7 cat and a 8.3 Cummins....but they weren't stuck though

[12vsuburban]

yeah, if I feel like im gonna break a balancer bolt, its stuck enough to warrant pulling the head in my opinion...yeah, its some work, but I dont want to score the cyl walls if it does have some rust on the walls...the amount of rust I saw in the turbo and exh manifold more than likely means the exh valves that were open have a bit of rust on the seats as well...warranting a valve job anyways....damn snow ball effect....