My friends 86 300zx turbo has been sitting in his garage for two years. The car has not been started in two years.
I would like to know before we start it - should we put in a fuel stabilizer in tank?
Could there be water in the tank?
How should we proceed? Thanks

 

How many miles on it? pull the coil wire and turn it over for a while before starting it. Add some fresh gas also.

 

pull the fuse on the fuel pump before cranking it over or you risk flooding it out and having a problem getting it started. I'd pull the plugs to reduce load on the starter also. change the fuel filter. you could just pull the discharge hose from the filter and run it to a glass jar. See what comes out. check the fuel pressure also. crank it a long time to try and get oil to the turbo.

 

I just dealt with this very same problem, only the gasoline in my 86 was 7 years old. I didn't wish to drop the tank, but I was stymied on how to drain as much of the old gas as possible. I then remembered many new cars have a fuel pump bypass connector hiding somewhere under the hood to test fuel pump pressure. Once a mechanic has a pressure gauge installed in the fuel line, they simply run a jumper lead from the positive terminal on the battery to the connector to activate the pump without turning on any other systems.

The 300ZX doesn't have the bypass connector, but the main harness connector supplying power to the pump is easy to locate under the foam mat in the back of the car. Mine is a blue connector with 3 wires. I placed a 12VDC battery on the floor and then ran a + jumper to the black/white stripe wire on the connector and - jumper to the all black wire directly opposite to the first wire. The pump runs uninterrupted. To drain the tank, I disconnected the fuel line from the top of the fuel filter and attached a spare piece of tubing about 3 to 4 feet long. I stuck the free end of the tube in an empty gas can and turned on the pump. Unrestricted, the pump discharges about a gallon per minute. Worked like a charm to empty out ~10 gallons.