Preservation of rebuild engine

[nokas]

Hello,

I was putting a bay back on the road and therefore I had to rebuild the engine. The engine has a new case, pistons, valves , oil pump ....
The fast "putting back on the road" has now become a full resto. Sounds familiar?
That means that the engine will be on the shelf for another 2-3 years.

What would be the best thing to do to preserve the engine?

Some say that manually turning the engine from time to time is enough, others say that it's better to let it run every 6 months.

The engine is bolted together with the gearbox and mounted on a dolly, so letting the engine run is possible. However the fresh engine has only run once for 20 min at raised rpm (as the book "how to rebuild your vw engine" suggests ). As the engine is at the moment not fully ran in, I'm afraid letting it run from time to time will do no good. Maybe it will make the engine "lazy"?

What would be the best thing to do?

 

[atafonso]

Loosen both sides rocker arms to close the valves and release the spring pressure. Turn it from time to time and also remove the plugs and spray some oil in the cylinders. Seal the carb intake hole too with plastic and a zip tie.
Abel

 

[ozziedog]

As Abel says ^^^. The other thing I would do, is stick a post it or something with a note on there with the date that you did it and just finger the plugs in. Then every three or for months you can spray some more in and turn it etc but leave yourself a note with a date and what you did. It`s so easy to think that you did it just a couple of weeks ago then all of a sudden its two years and you got a seized up rebuilt rusted nuffink. I do the same for lots of things now, even household paint, where it was used and when. So when Mrs Ozziedog comes back from her weekly coven meeting and says ,,,,,"Its about time you decorated the so and so !! you haven`t painted it for twenty years" at least I can check and make sure I`m not getting bollocked for nothing :roll: :lol:

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,,, Tried arguing at one stage,,,, I`ve only just got back to being a handsome prince ! :mrgreen:

 

[atafonso]

As Abel says ^^^. The other thing I would do, is stick a post it or something with a note on there with the date that you did it and just finger the plugs in. Then every three or for months you can spray some more in and turn it etc but leave yourself a note with a date and what you did. It`s so easy to think that you did it just a couple of weeks ago then all of a sudden its two years and you got a seized up rebuilt rusted nuffink. I do the same for lots of things now, even household paint, where it was used and when. So when Mrs Ozziedog comes back from her weekly coven meeting and says ,,,,,"Its about time you decorated the so and so !! you haven`t painted it for twenty years" at least I can check and make sure I`m not getting bollocked for nothing :roll: :lol:

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,,, Tried arguing at one stage,,,, I`ve only just got back to being a handsome prince ! :mrgreen:

Great suggestion, will try to incorporate it in my goods
Abel