Classic/Antique Car Repair: Starting an older engine, oil pressure gauge, flywheel teeth

Question
I have a 1956 Buick special, 8 cylinder engine, that I purchased yesterday.  It has not been started in 5 years.  I am in the process of restoring in and would like to start it .  Can you advise me on how  I should go about starting the engine ?  Is there anyway for me to check if the engine is "frozen" ? Please also advise me on anything else that I will need to know about getting it running.  I appreciate your advise.

Daniel

Answer
When a car has sat this long, you really should take the oil pan down and clean out the crud before you even try to rotate the engine.  The reason is that there will be a half inch of gritty mud in the bottom of the pan (even though the dip stick will look like there is new oil in there) because all the grit and dirt will have settled to the bottom of the pan. If you crank the engine, the oil pump will suck this stuff up and ruin your bearings very quickly.

Once you have the pan down (you can do this from under the car) you can use a pry bar against the flywheel teeth to slowly rotate the engine, a few degrees at a time, to see if there is any hard resistance to turning.  Put some oil in each spark plug hole first, so that you are lubing the cylinder walls as you do this.  Leave the plugs out.

If you feel any resistance to turning, STOP! , before you bend a push rod or worse.  If it turns all the way around TWICE, (so that you've also rotated the cam 360 degrees), it is safe to put the pan back on, fill the oil, and try the starter.   The points will have to be replaced before it will start, but you don't want it to start right away anyway.  You want to run it on the starter, with no spark plugs, to circulate the oil underpressure.  Watch the oil pressure gauge to see if  oil pressure builds up - if it does, then it's safe to put in new plugs, points, condensor and see if it will fire up.  You'll have to put liquid gas down the carburetor, then put the air cleaner back on before you crank it, because otherwise you can get a nasty fireball back out of the carburetor if an intake valve is stuck open.  It may start at that point, but I'm sure you are going to have to clean out the fuel system rebuild the carburetor and replace the fuel pump before you can drive it.

I know this is all much more work than just "dumping some gas down the carburetor and hitting the starter", but it will also save a lot of damage if you do it the slow, careful way.

Good Luck - these are beautiful cars!

Dick