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Pre-startup Compression Test Question

Started by rodneyramjet, February 14, 2017, 12:32:11 AM

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rodneyramjet

Ok...my inherited 1968 Charger with a 383 is nearing an important milestone.  I took off the gas tank, had it boiled, blew out the fuel lines, replaced the short rubber piece of fuel line, turned it over by hand, pre-oiled it using the "pre-oiler tool on a drill down the distributor shaft" method, shot some more oil into the cylinders through the spark plug holes, and now I am doing pre-startup compression testing.

The car hasn't ran since 1983 but when my stepdad (who was a mechanic) laid it up he shot oil in the cylinders, covered it up nicely, and left it in his garage until the time of his passing a couple months ago. 

Initially all the readings except two were right around 120 psi, but cylinder #5 was only 30 psi the first time, then I shot some more oil in it and turned it over again and it went up to 50 psi. The same thing happened with cylinder #6, first it was about 65 psi, the next try after oil addition was 80 psi.  When I test the other cylinders a second time they also go up.

Should i be concerned enough to delay putting the spark plugs in and trying to get it to fire up?  I'm 99% certain that it ran just fine when he laid it up all those years ago.  Or, should I dig deeper and get this figured out before attempting to fire it up?

Advice please?



Smoke em if ya got em

PRH

IMO, get it running before diving any deeper.
Could be some rings sticking in the pistons, and some heat cycling should loosen things up a bit.
Porter Racing Heads......Building and racing Mopars since 1980

rodneyramjet

Excellent, thank you PRH.  I'll post back on the results.
Smoke em if ya got em