'84 12a R.B. Exhaust otherwise stock. New fuel pump & filter Cap, rotor, plugs, wires, and fuel in clean tank. Vehicle sat for many years. ( 1500 miles in 15yrs according to the o.d.o./ title) Read the aaroncake (and anything else I could find) write up on breathing life in to improperly stored 7's. It'll start with 4 accel. pumps and run,poorly. Warmed vehicle up, had throttle open and did compression test. Pulsed to 25 psi with release valve held. I can't believe this motor even runs with that kind of compression. On the plus side all rotor faces were even! As the title states am I doing anything wrong? The compression tester is almost brand new and is snap-on.
Thanks in advance,
-Rob

 

i had just installed a used motor from an '83 (12a) into my '79 SA, and could not get it to fire up. checked everything i could think of and couldn't figure it out till i started reading about how the apex seals can get after sitting for a while. well i just started searching and found a lot of useful info on using seafoam and MMO (marvel mystery oil) to help free up the seals to regain compression. what i did was just pull my spark plugs and run a small piece of clear rubber tubing into the holes and squirt and liberal amount into each spark plug hole while turning the e-shaft by hand and while alternating housing and L and T spark plug holes until the MMO was just running out of the end of my header ( no exhaust installed at this point just a header). at this point i figured the motor was pretty well full and the seals most likely quite saturated with MMO. i then let this sit for a good 24 hours and went out the next day did another small treatment and hooked the battery back up withiout installing the plugs i then began cranking the e-shaft by hand again via the front pulley bolt (19mm socket with ratchet) to till no more MMO was coming out the end of the header pipe. next, put some shop towels next to the plug holes on the house and cranked in a little via the starter to blow out more of the MMO, once i was staisfied with this i said a little prayer installed the plugs back in housings, hooked up the ignition wires, crossed my fingers and toes and started cranking at first i cranked it for a min or two then deicded to get here a few sprays of starting fluid (ether/quickstart). cranked a bit more and BOOM, she fired right up and man with just the header it was so loud i think my neighbors are still pissed, not to mention all the smoke from the MMO and what not. anyway i guess i just had so sticking apex seals and wasn't getting any compression at least until i did the MMO treatment but apparently that freed them up and got her going......so i hope this helps. definitly go and look up seafoam and mmo on the firstgen forums...it seems like a lot more people out there swear by seafoam which im sure works just as good and mayeven be better but i used MMO (just cause i had no choice, as i was withen walking distance to wal-mart which they didn't have seafoam) and it revived my seals to good comperssion so it is worth looking into.....later