Howdy Scotty. My brother and I are trying to fix my dad's early 1990s manual mk3 supra that's been sitting in our backyard for 17 years. It has around 130k miles on it. We put a new battery inside and we got the electronics to turn on, but the engine wont crank. The engine itself is in good condition and the car used to run normally at the time of being parked. Whenever we turn the key we hear a clicking sound from the engine bay, but that's about it. Something else to note is that we live in Wisconsin, so the car has accumulated a fair bit of rust. Any suggestions on how to get it going or what we should take a look at? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
It doesn't sound like the engine was setup for any long term storage, and being up in the rust belt that's not a good thing. If you have access to a bore-scope, look inside the cylinders and check the condition of the cylinder walls and other passages. Best outlook is the cylinder walls are clean or have very light surface rust that could be scrubbed off to clean metal, then the block can probably be used. If the rust has caused pitting, where there are pockmarks eaten into the metal, it may not be able to be used.
If you can't tell, then before even trying to fire it up again because it's been sitting for a long time, pull the spark plugs out of all the cylinders. Fill the cylinders with engine oil and let it sit for a few days. Then, try turning the engine over with a breaker bar. If it moves, you may be able to salvage the engine provided there's no deep pitted rust in the cylinder walls etc.. Good luck
Sounds like a bad starter. Try getting that replaced, and check the wiring to the starter too. make sure there's no corrosion.
Since the car has been sitting a while, check out this video too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PUTfxrPIfA
