Practically Used Homestead Wheels

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UPKEEP HEADACHES?
Investing $50 a month on maintenance will prevent 90% of car problems before they happen.

Before you start the engine, open the hood and remove the oil-filler cap. If the underside is caked with a thick, black residue, the oil has not been changed frequently enough over many years. Even if the engine compartment has been newly steam-cleaned, the engine (and the rest of the mechanicals as well) may have been sorely neglected. Look down the sides of the engine for the oil filter—on newer vehicles, a painted-metal cylinder the size and shape of a pickle jar. The paint should be bright under a minimum of road grime. If it is caked solid with road splash, is rusted, or dull with age, it's been in far too long—unless it has been in prolonged storage.

Pull the dipstick. Fresh. light-colored oil is new (perhaps just changed to mask ne glect you discovered from a cruddy filler cap;. Darkcolored oil is acceptable so long as it is translucent. If it is opaque, it has been in too long—or the engine is worn. Smell. A burned odor suggests bearings are running hot, which means they are grinding themselves to iron filings.

Look in the radiator. Coolant should be that iridescent-green antifreeze color and clear. If it's pink, it is years too old. Murky coolant and rustcolored gum clogging the inside of the cap suggest poor maintenance. Look around the engine and up on the firewall where heater hoses enter. Unless it's around ends of easily replaced hoses, crusty white residue or coolant green on the radiator and around gaskets indicates leaks. Caked-on grime anywhere indicates an oil leak. Thick grime all over suggests a poorly maintained vehicle.

Be sure the engine has been getting dust-free air. Look at the donut-shaped air filter element and smaller breather filters inside the air cleaner. If gray and clogged with leaves and bugs, they've not been changed often enough. Sheet metal of the air-cleaner housing inside the filter should be pristine except, perhaps, for a thin oil coating. Look down the carb. Throat and plates inside may be discolored but should be shiny and clean. Fine grit anywhere suggests that the engine has been breathing sand—not good.

Now, turn the key till dash comes alive, but don't start engine. Temperature, oil pressure, battery gauges should jerk alive or idiot lights come on, Depress accelerator once hard, release, and turn key to start the engine. (Unless it's just out of prolonged storage. Then spark should be disconnected and engine preoiled by cranking with starter till oil pressure is reached. If owner—just fires up along stored engine, the vehicle may have been abused in other ways.) Don't be surprised if an owner tells you a trick or two needed to get it going. Old cars have their quirks—okay so long as safety isn't compromised and it's not as much bother as my Jeep that would start fine but had to have the voltage regulator set manually before it would charge. If I neglected to do it, the engine would run till the battery was dead and I'd need a tow.

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