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Wayback Wheels - Vintage Car Talk   Autumn classic car care tips for winter storage   By Aaron Neilly Well, another summer is pretty much over. Some of us may argue that summer never actually arrived this year - and some of us were too busy to notice if it showed up or not. I think I put about 300 miles on my ’72 BMW this summer, compared to about 3,000 last summer. One thing is inevitable, colder weather will be here soon, and you need to get your classic car ready for hibernation.   To make sure your car is safe over the winter and will start up trouble- free in the spring, I’ve put together a few tips and suggestions. Before you start, get out there and buy as much oil as your car takes, a new oil filter, some decent car wash soap (no, dish soap is not a decent car wash soap) some car wax, some protectant, leather conditioner and some dryer sheets.   First, give the car a good wash. Make sure you get underneath, in the wheel arches, etc. This will get rid of any road salt that may have still been on the roads when you first took the car out of storage. Take the car for a nice drive afterwards to dry everything out and to get the engine good and warm.   Now that your engine is up to operating temperature and your car is dry, change the oil & filter. I know, you just changed your oil at the beginning of the summer and you've only put 400 miles on the car, right? Change it anyway. Oil reacts with the alloys in your engine and turns acidic over time, etching bearing surfaces, etc. For what it costs to do an oil change, think of the trouble it could save you in the future. Also, make sure your antifreeze is still good. People forget about antifreeze because it's a “summer car”, and end up with a cracked block.   Wax the car and clean out your interior thoroughly, (it's amazing where Tim Horton’s cups will end up) and treat the dash, and any other vinyl and plastic surfaces, to a healthy dose of protectant. This will, primarily, make everything nice and shiny, but it also prevents these things from cracking. Coat your tires in the protectant while you've got it out, it will help preserve the rubber.   If your car has leather seats, use some leather conditioner and give them a good cleaning. Again, the conditioner will make the leather soft and prevent cracking over the winter. Think of it as hand cream for your seats.   Now, for the dryer sheets - hide them everywhere in that car... under the seats, in the glove box, the trunk, the console, above the sunvisors, etc. For some reason, mice hate the smell of these. I had been told moth balls work to repel mice, so last winter I filled the interior of the BMW with them, only to find a mouse nest built around a pile of them. And to make matters worse, the car still stinks of naphthalene. The dryer sheets seem to work, and your car smells like a fresh batch of laundry in the spring.   Everyone's storage situation is different, but if you can't get indoor storage for the winter, I'd highly recommend buying a good quality car cover that breathes well. Some that are available are even lockable. The $49.99 variety just don't cut it for outdoor use - you'd be better off using a bedsheet. Never use a tarp, as they don't breathe, and they will scratch your paint.   Once the car is parked where it's being stored, jack it up and support it on jack stands. Leaving the car on its tires increases the chance of getting flat spots on the tires, and if there is a small leak in one of them, it will be sitting in that one spot all winter on a flat tire, eventually ruining it. Make sure you support the car where it's designed to be supported - every car is different, so check online if you have any doubts.   Pull the battery out and keep it in a warm place for the winter. (The basement works well.) Throw it on a low-amp charge for a few hours every month or so. Remove the air breather, and cover the intake of the carb with a plastic bag and seal it up with tape. This will keep mice out of your engine. Mice can make an otherwise reliable car very hard to start.   Plug the tailpipe with a rag or seal it up with a plastic bag. This is another experience I have learned from. After getting the BMW out of storage last year, it was idling in the driveway and kept making a strange popping sound, almost like popcorn.   When I went around the back of the car, it was literally spitting popcorn out the tailpipe. Mice had taken corn kernels and hidden them in the muffler. Do yourself a favour and leave a note on the dash to remind you the tailpipe and intake are plugged when you take the car out of storage in the spring.   Finally, cover the car up . . . and wait anxiously for the warm weather of 2010 to arrive.   Aaron Neilly is a licensed mechanic with a soft spot for unique automobiles. He can usually be found tinkering on a classic Volkswagen in his spare time. You can e-mail him at: bandicoot.rally@gmail.com       Return to top of page   This Is Livin' Publishing © 2010 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster