I did a search...nothing...if there is a similar thread please delete this one. I thought this would be a cool subject,Anybody has a cool story of an engine that just wont quit or die??? You raced it,wrecked it,its on your 7th car and just wont die?? Did you ever freshened said engine??? This engine never let you down,Did you ever do the same for it??like give it a rebuild?? Lets hear it...we dont want to hear your honda's story or OT car,just hamb friendly... If you aint got one and dislike this thread,dont post or just write F@ck off. We'll feel better...
I had a 327 that followed me around for ten years in 3 different cars and has been in my friends possession in 2 different cars... still strong after replacing the valve springs but has leaky guides now.
Chevrolet's 4.3 v6 My S10's been in my family since 1992 and it has the original motor in it with 278k on it and it still fires right up and runs good.
my 87 volkswagen scirroco has 300k on it......... kidding. i wish i had a death proof engine. i cant seem to keep anything running (great) for any length of time. -DVZ
In 1972 I bought a 1963 2 door Dodge dart (Truly a great body style we should see more of here) from the AMC dealership near his shop for $25.00 and the NYS bill of sale clearly stated it being sold as JUNK. We got it home & after an afternoon of work and probably $25 worth of tune up parts the car was ready to run. 3 speed, 3 on the tree, 225 slant and big miles. I drove that car 60 miles round trip to work for 2 years and it used oil at a progressively greater rate until I was putting in nearly 4 quarts of recycled oil a day, fogged everyone out and the engine never failed. I was putting my motorcycle on the road as the weather was breaking and the night before the bike was registered I stopped at a friends house and when I went to start it up I got just a click...figured it finally fetched up. I was wrong, the starter failed and after a push start drove it home for the last time and then it was scrapped. Boy could that sucker wind up in second gear...
I had a 327 Chevy that I put 190K miles on, got it from a '68 Impala donor at 80K and had it in a '65 belair most of the time. I ran it low on oil once badly, figured it was toast, added 3 quarts and it came back to life. I had then let it sit for 2 years, resurrected it out of desperation for a couple of stock car races when I was between motors. I had swapped over the stock car parts to it, otherwise was bone stock. Got a 4th in the main with it one night. Then it was sold to a guy who wanted it for a boat. I was at his shop and the thing was apart on the bench. I looked at the pieces, pistons, bores and crank looked mint. Bob
There is a 351C that has been in my fathers HotRod longer than I have been alive (Born in 72, so not that old I guess). It was hammered on by my dad! Then I got the car and was not nice to it at all, plus it was used as a daily driver for about 10 years, NEVER let me down, never broke down on me. It's back with my father now, same motor still going strong. Doc.
My mom had a 56 Ford W/272 auto that was passed on to me in high school. My old man helped me rebuild it and I "raged" on it in that 56 and another one until I got drafted in 69. It was one tough yblock.
I gave my 429 Ford motor from my wag/tow car to a buddy,after I put about 140,000 on it,just reg. mat.,he put it in his pick-up truck 8 years ago and he's still going with it too.
Back in my old 55-57 Chevy days, playing with cars with a bunch of other motorheads, we would buy a decent Chevy, and then "soup it up" Usually that meant dropping in a stock junkyard motor, with a set of glasspacks! 350's were all ove the place and could be had for a couple hundred bucks...about the same we might pay for a 57 Chevy 2 door sedan. anyway, we might get one with an original six in it, like the one in my buddy Arnold's 56. We had a 396 waiting to go in it, and the six was still running and driving. So to push things along, we drained the oil from the 235, and ran it. And ran it. And it was still running after about 15 minutes. So we put a brick on the gas pedal. And it still kept running. Drained the antifreeze. Still running after another half hour. Finally someone got pissed, and just started shooting water from a hose into the carb, and it finally stopped it. Amazing how it ran so long.
My friend had a dart with a slant six. His dad said we could put in a built 340 we found if the slant six died. We tried everything to kill it. Drained all the coolant, drained the oil, drove it around like this. It just kept on going. The intake was glowing and it dieseled after you shut it off, but it just kept going. We put the oil and coolant back in and drove around in low gear hard, and it just kept going. Finally we gave up, and left it alone. The car had like 100,000 + miles then. He traded it in aon a Dakota and another friend bought the car at the auction. He yanked the engine and put it in his Valiant and is still driving it. We messed with that car in like 96-97, and it's still going. Slant six in my opinion is totally bulletproof. As an interesting aside the carb was loose so we tightened down the bolts. It wouldn't stay running. You had to run it with the carb to manifold bolts a little loose. It sounded pretty cool through the single cherry bomb it had on it too. It burbled at idle like a boat in the water. Matt
I got a small block that is in its 4th or 5th body now. I have lost count, maybe the Raven knows he keeps track of that sort of thing. I should freshen it but I may not before it goes in the next body. Guess that counts as me letting it down? The 312 that I raced when I was a kid was in its 3rd body when I let it go. I broke a rocker street racing on friday night and drove it home that way. I busted a cam on the big end once, we towed it to the shop of a friend and changed he cam and were racing the next weekend. It didn't hurt anything else.
My F1 was purchased by my Grandpa brand new in '51 and it was put to a hard life on the farm in central Montana. To make matters worse, my uncle hot-rodded it all over the country side when he was in high school, he even had a little side business hauling manure to sell to people's gardens in town. Then it sat outside for years while I was a kid, out at the farm. Fast forward to the 90s, Grandpa gave me the truck and we started working on it together in his shop. We thought the engine was shot, or at least cracked since nobody bothered to check the antifreeze all those years, but after a full tune up, new pumps and carb and a good cleaning it ran like a top. Amazing. Good power, great throttle response, etc. The goofy thing idled so smooth and quiet you literally had to look at the fan belt to see if it was still running....that part always impressed people. It's the engine in my avatar and the video below, it's now a full house flathead, 4" crank, balanced, ported, valve relief, etc. The only reason I rebuilt it a few years ago was due to a wrist pin coming loose and wearing 4 little grooves in one cylinder, so it had a tiny bit of blow-by. Oh, and I wanted a little more hp...haha. Nowadays you sure don't have to look at the fan belt to see if it's running or not...it has quite a presence...LOL
Un HAMB friendly, but...in high school I had an 83 toyota 2wd p/u with the 22r motor. Put over 200k on it and beat the snot out of it (had the bullet holes in it to prove it). Sold it to a freind, he did the same and put another 75k on it. He wrapped it around a tree so hard the bed came flying off. Still, the police had to climb in and turn the motor off at the accident scene.
I have to agree with the older 318 Mopar engines. My Dad bought one new in '64, in a wagon with a three on the tree. He ran it out of oil once while towing a boat full of camping gear due to a pinhole in the oil filter. The car got passed down to me in highschool where it was punished EVERY day; no air cleaner, drag racing most mornings, and the general abuse a teenager puts on a car. i wore out a set of rear tires in less than six months. (My dad blamed it on cheap Fisk tires from K Mart) then the car went to my brother who drove it to college and not once changed the oil...for several years. The car still ran perfectly and was sold to a local kid. The last time I saw the car it was painted flat black with stars on it and was squeeling the tires out of a gas station....
350 Chevy in an O/T vehicle. 305,000 miles and never even had a valve cover removed. Uses one half quart of oil between 3000 mile oil changes. Used since new to pull travel trailers, car trailers, whatever. Still my every day driver.
I had a 215 Pontiac (~ to the 230 Chevy) in my C30 panel truck. Same story, drained the oil and water, removed the radiator for the swap to a 283. I drove it around the block around 20 times, beating on it all the way. This motor was so abused anyway, it went through 3 quarts of oil a day. I finally got tired of driving it around and parked it for the swap. No telling how far it might have gone. Bob
I used to have a 1960 Chevy pickup that I put a used 327/4 speed in. From the time I installed the engine, it had a knock in it like a wristpin or collapsed piston skirt. I drove it for a year like that and one day it got to bugging me. I thought I'm gonna find out once and for all what it is. So I took it out on an access road, wound it to about 6500, hit second gear and ,sure enough, all hell broke loose. Coasted to the side of the road and stopped. The engine was idling just like always with the tap in it. When I shifted, my worn out shift linkage had let the transmission go into two gears at once. Tore up the transmission and knocked a few teeth off the ring gear in the rear end--------but the engine was still ok. I guess I learned not to try to outsmart a piece of metal that day. I fixed all of my drive train carnage and never touched the engine. It was still in the truck when I sold it a couple of years later. Larry T
Chopolds, That's really ironical. We did the same thing to a buddy's 55 Chev hardtop. It had We had a 327 ready to drop in so we were good to go. First he dropped the coolant out of it and drove it the 7 mi. to the next town and back. The oil cam out and it was driven the same route again. When he got back, we just dropped a brick on the accellerator pedal and waited for it to blow up. We really wanted to blow that 235 up. We hoped for at least a rod out the side, but no, we watched as it slowly ground to a halt and siezed.
I had a chevy 235 in a '63 Nova wagon with a air cooled 'Glide, drove it for years with a Knock, wrist pin i always thought but never did more than think 'cause it kept running. The trans gave out eventually and the car was rusted badly so i took the engine & parted the car out. A little later I bought a '69 C-10, ithad a bad motor so I put the 6 in that. Drove it for years, can't quite recall what happened to it, but it never blew up. I do remember I took mi dirt bike around in it and often after a day of iding & beers would drive home with my foot flat on the boards for quite a ways. Never had any troubles, knocking away the whole time !
I'd have to say, the ford six in my 63 econoline pickup I once had. That thing was like the energizer bunny: compression actually got better after a couple years of driving it.
Lets see i have a 351w that finally died at about 350k it failed hard though its got the number 1 rod hanging out of the oil pan. But rod bearings could have prevented that. Cool thing was after i pulled the intake... not a drop of sludge...
Great thread- mostly a "lurker" here, trying to soak up information, but can't resist posting heer. Once again gotta give props to dad, I grew up on pictures and great stories of $20 '51 Chev coupes and $10 235's from his teenage years in the early sixties. Powerglide rearend with a later 235 in a coupe was his hot combo. Not much cash, run it 'til the valves float. Rinse lather repeat. FF 20 odd years as I wait for the worst- high-centered mom's '63 Meteor f***in' around in the rain on my way to school. No damage, just wounded pride and a certain knowledge he would kick my ass! Ol' dad suprised me tho, took me out back, real quiet like, and handed me the keys to his '63 C10 with a worn-out 230 in it. Told me I owed him $100, and hardly ever mentioned the incident again. Kind of started my love affair with I-6's right there... I beat the snot out of that thing, later bought a '61 BelAir w/ a 235 that wouldn't die (rolled it and sold the 235 for what I paid for the car!) and then I found the one that still makes my heart pitter-patter... my first 283. Bunch of mismatched parts and a set of rings and bearings and I was in business. Put it in an OT SS ElCamino and flogged for a year. Traded it to pops and he used it for several years, I got back later, damaged the body and drove it to a wrecking yard still running, and got a $100 or so for it in '91. Got a 283 waiting to go in my '52 BelAir this winter.. can't wait!
A friend of mine had a 50 Chevy 1/2 ton with a very tired 216. One day we went tin hunting in the country in the winter because you can see into the bush and spot old cars. We drove all over hells half acre until the oil pressure gauge dropped to zero a couple of times and we decided to head home. The shortest way involved crossing the river at a ferry slip that was closed for the winter but had an ice road plowed across. By now the needle is pinned on zero it's getting cold and dark. Another twenty miles at no pressure and we get to the river, there's a large sign saying it's too late in the season to cross the now spongy ice. There's no other way now so we get on the ice pull the cable throttle on the dash out to give the old girl a little speed and both climb out on to the running boards with him steering the truck through the open window. My ass was puckered up so tight I think it bit a hole in my shorts. There was about six inches of water on top of the ice but we got across and up the steep hill on the other side. We then drove the thirty or so miles by several closed service stations until we could get to an open one and put 4 quarts into the engine. You could hear the engine quiet down as she got a drink. He drove that truck for a long time always adding oil (and carrying spares). We all used to save our used oil for him. Amazingly it didn't really smoke all that bad but leaked like a seive. He sold the truck running and I saw it around for a long time, there is something to be said for old, loose, worn out splasher 216s.
my friend built a new small block ford so we decided the old 302 should go out with a bang. we fired it up and tossed a cinder block on the gas pedal, 20 minutes at 8500rpm and we ended up having to turn it off because the neighbors got a little upset about the noise. we tried, it just wouldnt die.
Chevy 250, beat on that motor all through high school, and two years after. A buddy of mine had a small block 400 that was treated worse, Im not sure how that 400 stayed together.
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