Yes! I know it's summer!

I just bought myself a lovely 97 XK8 Convertible. I work away for two to three months at a time.

I have a storage place in what was a very large and dry barn in Lancashire. There is absolutely no damp and it is well aired, concrete floors , corregated roof with vents.

My fear is rats or mice getting in. I was thinking of building a wooden box to seal it in with.


Q:
1. Do i seal it completely or put vents in? ( i was thinking of putting in a solar powered fan to circulate the air )
2.Should i have the battery on trickle charge on the car or should i just disconnect it and leave it on trickle charge ( i have CTEK charger )
3. Any other tips? jack it off the gound? Get someone to fire it up every month? All tips greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Chris Stubley

 

There's a couple of British classic car TV shows that I enjoy watching and am always shocked at the amount of rust they have to repair on every car. I don't know if they go out of their way to find the absolute worst cars to restore just for entertainment value or if that's just par for the course in that part of the world. On Car SOS, they always show opening the garage door where the car has been kept for decades and very often see condensation even on the inside of the windows. I just can't imagine as I've never seen that here in Texas.

But if you are only going away for two or three months at a time, then I'd think its overkill to take the battery out or do serious prep for long-term storage. It will be fine to leave the CTEK connected. However I learned the hard way not to jack a car up and leave the suspension hanging for long. All the bushing bolts are tightened after alignment with the car sitting at normal ride height so letting the suspension hang is actually leaving them under stress. The suspension bushings are rubber and will take a set just like the tires will. But the difference is that the suspension bushings are harder to replace than tires and probably much older than the tires. Instead, I use a trick I learned back when I was racing SCCA autocross. Everyone who was racing on street tires carried a portable air tank or battery operated compressor and would add five to ten PSI to their tires for the event to prevent tires rolling onto the sidewalls when pushing hard in the corners and then let the air back out to normal pressure for the drive home. Now I do that with cars that will be sitting for a long time and it works pretty well to prevent the tires from flat spotting.

If you are going to run the engine, then you really need to get it out and drive it. With my storage situation, I have to shuffle cars to get one out from the back or to move them around so I can work on one. Thus I tend to run engines like every weekend without actually driving them and that's not ideal. I always let them run long enough to get them up to operating temperature at least. But then when it comes time to actually drive one of my old classics, it might smoke for the first few miles and it'll pour water out the tailpipes. They won't do that if I drive them regularly or if I just don't start them at all for a few months. So if its only going to be three months, I think I'd just leave it alone rather than having someone come start it in between. Just starting the engine without driving it also does nothing to stir the fuel in the tank and keep additives like ethanol and even water from separating out. What I would do tho is put a full tank of fresh top tier gasoline (petrol) and add a few ounces of fuel stabilizer. With a full tank of fresh fuel, it would be fine to sit undisturbed for six months and with stabilizer, should be Ok for up to a year.

As to rodents, moisture and ventilation, I'll have to defer to one of your nearer neighbors on how to keep your car from becoming a guest star of one of those extreme restoration reality TV shows.

 

Attached is the Bentley recommended storage procedure I used to have carried out on my Continental R for three months each Winter and on my Aston Martin DB5 for considerably longer periods. The only thing I would change now is NOT to remove the battery but to maintain it on a CTEK and the transmission fluid level check does not apply to Jaguar.



My current Bentley Continental GT rests safely in an unheated timber garage each Winter with no adverse effects. My Jaguar XK is used as a daily driver and must withstand whatever the weather throws at it.




Graham