Mid-length (hopefully) outdoor storage prep/precautions

My house is now up for sale (in true GRM style, the primary reason why? I need a bigger Berkleying garage...), and everything but the garage is cleared out and good to go. Said garage is currently mostly occupied by (hopeful) $2013 Challenge car, a 1979 El Camino.

At the moment, pretty much the entire front end is off of the car as I had taken it all off to be able to more easily pull the engine & transmission and clean up the engine bay. The engine was put back in a few weeks ago, albeit without the heads it will actually be running on- I'll hopefully have those back from the shop in the next few days.

The next stop for the El Camino is going to be a friend's storage lot where it will have to sit until my house is sold and a new one (and a larger garage...) has been secured. It's a gravel-covered lot, but it will otherwise be exposed to the elements.

My current plan once I get the heads back is to essentially finish putting the engine back together (heads, intake, most of the accessories) but not try and get it running. Put the front end back together so the hood and fenders are back on and protecting the engine and other underhood stuff, tow it out to the lot, and put a tarp or car cover over it.

The gas tank is currently empty at least in so much as gas can be drawn from it by the fuel system.

What I'm interested in is what precautions/preparations I should be taking with the engine & car itself so that I'll be able to pick it back up and get it running as quickly and easily as possible. Should I be filling the engine normally with oil and then priming the system with the pump and a drill? Or doing it some other way or using something other than normal motor oil? Any other precautions besides making sure that the intake & exhaust is blocked off to prevent wildlife from trying to take up residence in the engine?

Thanks!

wouldn't it be easier to enlarge the garage ?

Remove the tank and keep it in a warm dry place or fill completely full with fuel

I would consider fogging the motor once you have it together.

Other than that you plan sounds ok. The shorter it can stay on gravel the better as that will promote moisture under the vehicle.

This sounds weird but can you bag it? and then fill said bag with nitrogen? My friend did this once and it worked remarkably well. He laid down plywood then plastic and then put plywood again. Then put the car on the plywood. Wrapped the car with plastic and taped the seams with liberal amounts of duct tape. I think he added about 25lbs of rice in pans divided between the cabin and the trunk. Then he took a nitrogen tank and proceeded to fill it up with a hole on the other side of the bag to purge the air that was in there. Did this till he thought that the Air was purged and then taped it up. He then covered it with a packing blanket and a tarp. Every couple months he added more nitrogen just because he could. Kept the car this way for 2 years. Pulled it out and it was as if he had never stored it.

I'd put oil in the engine, plug the intake and exhaust, and park the car. Assuming it's going to be parked there for only a few months or so it should be fine.

edit: assuming the car is watertight, a tarp may cause more harm than good - it will hold in water against the car which can cause mold, mildew and rust, and it can scuff the paint from the wind blowing. It may be better to just park it out in the open, a little rain won't hurt anything.

It won't take long for wildlife to move in. Mice can do a E36 M3load of damage. Chipmunks like stashing nuts, dog food etc in air cleaners for some reason. I left the trans tunnel cover off a truck project, birds got in and E36 M3 over everything, it was like a berkeleying aviary. Wasps will build a nest anywhere, no damage just annoying when ya go to work on it.

I'd try to rodent proof it w/ your choice of repellent. Also, check it often before the critters take over. Chain and lock the hood shut, neighborhood thieves are always looking for stuff, I got hit before.

Mothballs work well for critters but your car smells funny for a while.

Thanks for all the advice!

iceracer wrote: wouldn't it be easier to enlarge the garage ?

Unfortunately that's not very easy given the layout of the property of my current house. Also, mine is already one of the more expensive places in the neighborhood, I'd never get close to recouping what would go into building a new garage/expanding the current one. The garage is only part of it though- it's just the easiest one to explain. :P

The hope is that it will only be a few months- most of how long it's there will depend on how long it takes to sell my current house. I considered just leaving it in the garage at the house while the house is up for sale, but in the end decided that it would be better to have the DeLorean in the garage instead of the El Camino. The DeLorean will benefit more from the protection (in heavy rains, its roof seals leak...) than the Elky, and it also doesn't make the garage look quite as small as the massive El Camino does. Having the DeLorean in the garage also just makes things more interesting. :P

It seems to be pretty watertight when it comes to precipitation, but keeping moisture out of the cabin is going to be difficult at best given the driver's side floorpan is more holes than metal. I'm still debating just how to handle it... I have the replacement floorpans (came with the car) that will be welded in down the line, so I may just put them in the car on top of the floor to help keep vermin out.

I'll be plugging up every opening that I can find and checking up on it regularly to ensure anything that does get in doesn't stay for very long. Locking & chaining the hood though is something I didn't think of- that is something I'll definitely be doing now!

fasted58 wrote: Chipmunks like stashing nuts, dog food etc in air cleaners for some reason.

Heeheehee. I have firsthand experience with this- my Mom got struck on the side of the road one winter when I was a kid thanks to an air cleaner/carb stuffed full of dog food. My dad (who had to track down and fix the problem) was not amused, my Mom and I (at like 12 years old) though I was absolutely hilarious.

3 months? Pour some StaBil in the gas tank, oil in the engine, plug the exhaust and call it a day as far as mechanical stuff goes.

I left a Malibu with no intake but full sheet metal. Some how the engine filled with rainwater. I would button up the engine with everything. To keep water out.

It only sat 6 months.

You've still got my intake plate, right? I'd get some rubber material, and just make a big gasket for it, and bolt it to the intake, that'll at least cover that area.

eastsidemav wrote: You've still got my intake plate, right? I'd get some rubber material, and just make a big gasket for it, and bolt it to the intake, that'll at least cover that area.

I do still have it, and that should work reasonably well if you don't need/want it back. I'm certainly not putting the carb on it while it's being stored if I don't need to (and since I'm not worried about getting it running at the moment, I don't need to...).

In reply to Ashyukun:

You might as well keep it for now, I'm kind of hoping not to do any more carb'd engine swaps for...um...forever.