just found a dirt cheap delta 88 in unknown condition. Guy selling it says it came with a property his old man just bought. Has no keys, looks like it been sitting atleast a decade, tires sunk into the dirt. Before i drag it home i want to here it run. Car is roughly 90 miles away and judging by pics, it was parked in a bad spot for a tow truck. Common sense tells me to bring a battery(i think group 78 or 75), jumper cables, air tank, floor jack, breaker bar with some sockets , extra set of plug wires, starting fluid, 3/8 fuel line(gravity feed the carb), allen wrenches, volt meter, test light, fire extingusher and a come along. Thats just off the top of my head. Cant remember the tools needed for ignition lock cylinder. Been about a decade since i last did it on a gm column. Any thoughts?

 

You are assuming the engine ISN'T froze up and the tires hold air. Extra lengths of chain and long tow straps might be helpful.

 

You don't need access to the ignition, you just need a jumper wire from the battery to the coil+ terminal and jumper the starter solenoid. I'm assuming your going to trailer it.

 

Make sure you bring a breaker bar and set of sockets that can fit the harmonic balancer bolt. I also suggest you bring a cheater bar at least 3 ft. long and some PB Blaster. If the motor is seized up like Ralph mentions then you probably won't be able to start it. If you could get it to budge a bit then at least you know the engine doesn't have catastrophic damage.

 

Take some oil and an oil can to squirt oil into the cylinders. They'll be dry after sitting so long. Also if it's a points ignition take a points file, they will probably be corroded. Good luck!

 

Take a socket set, breaker bar, 1 1/8" socket for the balancer bolt, WD40 to clean up the distributor and starter, big battery, jumper cables, a couple quarts of oil, maybe an oil filter, steel brush for the spark plugs, brake parts cleaner...that might be it. I'm not too keen on starter fluid but if you know it works, go for it.

 

If you want to be able to turn the wheel, you'll have to pull the wheel, there's a special tool used to pull the locking plate behind the wheel, and it's a lot easier to pull the ignition switch with the key after that, I've never done it without a key, that ought to be fun. There's probably a tab somewhere that can be pushed on if you want to remove and replace the ignition switch. Good luck.