Recover from old gas - long term storage

Keeper

Keeper

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Ok here goes.

87 Corvette, been in storage for about 10 years now. The first few years, every spring I would pull the car out, start it up, clean it up. Put it back in the garage.

Well the last 5 or so years...nada. And now I am paying for it.

Installed the battery, tried to fire it up and nothing. Turns out it had no fuel pressure as the original fuel pump had corroded up and was not functional. While pulling the pump, I realized that the gas in the tank is rancid. Smells of turpentine, and has a nice amber color to it. It was so bad that most of the sending unit had a nice coating of surface rust from inside the tank.

I have now replaced the fuel pump, siphoned off as much of the old gas as possible and am trying to purge the rest of the old gas out of the car. So far not a lot of luck trying to get it started.

I have fuel pressure, I have spark, just wont catch at all. Not even trying to fire.

I plan on picking up some starter fluid, just to make sure the thing will start, but does anyone have any other ideas on what I might need to do prior to getting this thing running again?

I imagine I should probably replace the fuel filter as well, but, I do not want to get to deep into the thing as it will most likely end right back up in "storage". I would of course like to have the thing at least running!
 
If gas was left in the float bowls, May have to clean the carb(s) too as everything is probably varnished.

If going back into long term storage, may be best not too have any gas left in the tank or system, but that may open another can of worms..

I know one gentleman that even drains the rad for storage.
 
Its injected, so I am almost afraid to see what that gas has done with the injectors.

And before it went into storage, the gas I put in the tank was 94 Octane from Sunoco, which was supposed to be the "Ethenol" free gas at the time....
 
Started fluid is a pretty good way of determining whether its a fuel problem or not . Was the tank full ? Enough condensation for it to pick up water and wet the plugs will cause headaches . There should be a schrader valve on your fuel rail you can check for pressure there .
 
No there was about 1/4 tank. Well it was close to full 10 years ago.....

I used the schrader to check the fuel pressure, and to use the pressure gauge to help bleed off the rest of the bad fuel.

Battery is charging back up, will give it another go tomorrow.
 
Its alive!

I got most of the bad gas out, added a couple gallons of 94 and ran it through the system. Once the gas was a lot less orange, I got out the starting fluid and it fired almost immediately and then stalled. A few more tries and one large backfire through the intake, (Not fun when you are still spraying starting fluid!!!) and it started running on its own. Has one hell of a miss as I am pretty sure at least one of the injectors are hosed.

Now that its at least running and somewhat driveable I will start looking at replacing the fuel filter and possibly the injectors. The car has had a slight miss its entire life, so driving it with a miss is nothing new...lol

It may end up being a trade in on another vehicle as these corvettes are not worth much, and dealing with all the tire kickers on kijiji or marketplace is not worth the extra cash.

Thanks for the help and suggestions folks.
 
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