Funny old engine pulling story

rusty28a · Feb 17, 2010

My engine pulling story...
My son and I picked up a 63 Mercury from a cabin by a river recently. Sat there for years and had all kinds of creepy crawlies in it. Inside it were aminal turds and cob webs as thick as I have ever seen. Wanting to pull the big block, I removed the hood and was wrestling with the radiator to core support bolts. I leaned my hand on top of the support and felt a sudden and searing pain in my hand. I withdraw it quickly only to discover...I'm old and arthritis hurt

Verbal Kint · Feb 17, 2010

I lived with a bunch of knuckleheads in a rental house with a long level driveway, the ceiling in the garage was not tall enough for the cherry picker so I did an OT engine/trans swap about midway down the driveway, put the front end up on jack stands (to get some working room for the driveline work) blocked one rear wheel, set the ebrake and put the manual trans in gear to keep it from rolling since I was working from both the top and the bottom.

I got all done (and was pretty proud of my accomplishment) so I decided to fire it up. I pulled out the jack stands, hooked up my fancy $9 remote starter and bumped it over, it didn't catch the first shot so I gave the throttle linkage a couple pulls and hit the trigger again. Well apparently when I had dropped it off the jack stands, I forgot to take it out of gear, once it lit off, the engine (in 1st gear) overpowered the ebrake drove right over the wheel chock and through the bottom two panels of the garage door. I'm sure my mouth open, combined with the dumb look on my face and holding the remote starter was "priceless".

So my "on the cheap" engine/trans swap cost me a couple headlights, surrounds, a grill, dinged up hood and I had to replace/repaint the garage door panels on the rental. I think it took 2 years before one of us did something stupid enough for me to loose the dumbass title.

CJ Steak · Feb 17, 2010

shinysideup said: ↑

Wasted time reading that story. Maybe call it the "lil tow truck that could" and read it to your 4 year old kid?
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Fuckin' whiner.

Kevin Lee · Feb 17, 2010

shinysideup said: ↑

Wasted time reading that story. Maybe call it the "lil tow truck that could" and read it to your 4 year old kid?
Click to expand...

Show some tact or don't post.

Gotgas · Feb 17, 2010

I didn't have a hoist, but needed to remove a 2.3 turbo engine from my Mustang after I blew it up. I put the car on stands, removed the transmission and mounts, then pushed the engine back out between the firewall and crossmember. Then drug it out the side. 17yr old kids do dumb stuff sometimes.

I liked the first story, glad he shared. There was an episode of the Red Green Show that had him building a contraption to use a car's engine to power the hoist you were taking the engine out with. Been a while since I laughed that hard...

ajmopar · Feb 17, 2010

Great story and great pic of the Hemi coupe!

My first experience with engine pulling was my brother using and old swing set from the yard to pull the slant six out of his Fargo pickup to put a 383/727 in. Pulled the slant no problem, but had a hell of a bend in the pipe on the top by the time the big block was set down in the truck!

We thought about safety later . . .

1959apache · Feb 17, 2010

nutajunka said: ↑

Damn, who pissed in your wheaties this morning?
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I did and he isnt happy about it

1950coronet600hp · Feb 17, 2010

shinysideup said: ↑

Wasted time reading that story. Maybe call it the "lil tow truck that could" and read it to your 4 year old kid?
Click to expand...

everyone is just so nice here.....

Hyway Hauler · Feb 17, 2010

shinysideup said: ↑

Wasted time reading that story. Maybe call it the "lil tow truck that could" and read it to your 4 year old kid?
Click to expand...

You obviously didn't "wast time" with your profile, because theres nothing to read...WTF?

Gasser 57 · Feb 17, 2010

When I was a kid, one of my best buddys who was a real butcher, had a Plymouth that he wanted to save the slant 6 out of before his dad called "Sweetman" (the local junkman) to take the car to the boneyard. Well being about 15, we got no money and of course no engine hoist but we do have chain. My buddy comes up with the idea that we'll just unbolt the slant 6, cut the top of the radiator support and wrap the chain around the engine. The other end of the chain gets wrapped around the back bumper of his dads Cadillac. Well with me standing back and that caddy taking a bit of a running start, that slant 6 shot out of that engine well like it was fired out of a 155 howitzer. Musta went 5 feet in the air. Looking back we did alot of questionable funny shit back then.

oldn_rusty · Feb 17, 2010

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><style>  </style> Great story… I hadn’t thought of my experience in a long time. Had a Rambler…. About 40 miles from home and the front wheel just laid over sideways. Moched a farm truck with an aframe, to fetch it home. The truck wasn’t licensed and the lights didn’t work, but. We lifted the front of the rambler off the ground and took off, I-70 West, through downtown Kansas City Mo and KC Ks. Passed a police officer and saw him look the other way. Nearly got it home when the rearend failed in the truck. Dad was driving and leaned out of the cab and yelled ‘If you want that thing home, you’d better start pushing’. I did. Of course we hadn’t chained the front end down, just up! When I tried to push, the front looked like it was heading for the sky. Finally got it home, fixed the front end and recognized that I should have just left it along the side of the road!
I agree – with RUSTYHOOD – “Any effort we give today, can be a good memory tomorrow!”

amphicar · Feb 17, 2010

shinysideup said: ↑

Wasted time reading that story. Maybe call it the "lil tow truck that could" and read it to your 4 year old kid?
Click to expand...

Posting your comment barely worthy of a spoiled 4 year old was a waste of our time.

Dave Flanders · Feb 17, 2010

Had a friend in high school (in the mid 70's) who took a job pulling and rebuilding an engine in a '63 Beetle. Well every engine we'd ever seen came out the top so he started pulling more and more off the thing until it came out the top the way it was supposed to. Wasn't until he went to put it back in he was told the correct way to do it.

Another time we were working on a Corvair powered dune buggy. Got the motor in and I suppose we wanted to hear if it would crank over or not. Unfortunately there was no carb on the Spyder intake. Someone rightly pointed out that if we cranked it over gas would shoot out the open gas line. No problem, we just stuffed the hose down the intake manifold and hit the switch. That thing must have revved to 9 grand!

torchmann · Feb 17, 2010

shinysideup said: ↑

Wasted time reading that story. Maybe call it the "lil tow truck that could" and read it to your 4 year old kid?
Click to expand...

I like the story about the towtruck but shiny you sound like you've seen birdie...the stupidest movie ever made. Everyone who knows... they watched the whole thing and wondered why they watched it at all. I'm ashamed to say that I too saw it and if you don't know what I'm talking about, keep it that way... dont. dont watch it...not even just a little.

I'm not joking...don't watch it, not even on youtube

onlychevrolets · Feb 17, 2010

A.P. Photography said: ↑

No reason to get all pissy about it. Just hit the back button and move on.

What happened to the car?
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It's a HAMB thing..... pissy, bitchy ,and down right assholey...hahaha

modelacitizen · Feb 17, 2010

Gasser 57 said: ↑

When I was a kid, one of my best buddys who was a real butcher, had a Plymouth that he wanted to save the slant 6 out of before his dad called "Sweetman" (the local junkman) to take the car to the boneyard. Well being about 15, we got no money and of course no engine hoist but we do have chain. My buddy comes up with the idea that we'll just unbolt the slant 6, cut the top of the radiator support and wrap the chain around the engine. The other end of the chain gets wrapped around the back bumper of his dads Cadillac. Well with me standing back and that caddy taking a bit of a running start, that slant 6 shot out of that engine well like it was fired out of a 155 howitzer. Musta went 5 feet in the air. Looking back we did alot of questionable funny shit back then.
Click to expand...

This is just .... wow LOL!

HOT ROD BILL · Feb 17, 2010

I "dropped" the motor out of my 55 Chevy. That's right folks, if you pull the heads and trans the block will slide right out the bottom and land softly in the dirt. It is a bitch dragging it out from under the car but sometimes you just got do things best you can.

metalman · Feb 17, 2010

Out on the farm my cousin pulled a couple motors out of some old Chevys, no chain hoist or big enough trees for that matter. Unbolted everything, hooked a chain to the tractor, roll the car upside down and the back on it's wheels, motor/ trans sitting neatly in the dirt beside the car. Dug a big hole with a front end loader, pushed the Chevy in and covered them up.

modelacitizen · Feb 17, 2010

metalman said: ↑

Out on the farm my cousin pulled a couple motors out of some old Chevys, no chain hoist or big enough trees for that matter. Unbolted everything, hooked a chain to the tractor, roll the car upside down and the back on it's wheels, motor/ trans sitting neatly in the dirt beside the car. Dug a big hole with a front end loader, pushed the Chevy in and covered them up.
Click to expand...

haha that sounds like re-inventing the wheel!

TagMan · Feb 17, 2010

Not exactly an engine pulling story, but many years ago my buddy helped me pull a 235" Chevy engine and put it in the back of my pick-up to take it to my storage area about 3-miles away. We got it on the bed, towards the tailgate and I started trying to push it to towards the cab. He told me to leave it where it was because "it ain't going nowhere".

The tailgate was down and we drove slow and it seemed OK. We stopped on a slight incline for a traffic light and a Police car pulled up behind us. I jerked the truck a little when I let out the clutch and the ol' 235 took a swan dive onto the pavement right in front of the cop. Fearing a ticket for an unsafe load, we both jumped out and to this day, I have no idea how we did it, but the two of us managed to get it back up into the truck bed using a 2"x10" board I had in the truck and this time, I closed the tailgate.

The only damage was to the oil pan (crushed it), but the rest was OK.

I remember looking at the cop and he was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down his face.

My back hurt for a week afterwards..........

jbrittonjr · Feb 17, 2010

My dad's engine hoist was a John Deere tractor with a home made "boom" attached to the 3 point hitch mounts.
The boom consisted of three steel pipes about 12 feet long extended from the rear of the tractor, held together by a steel bolt.
There was a 3 or 5 ton chain hoist attached to that.
When I was a kid & teen we lifted all sorts of stuff with that rig.
Dad's since moved to Missouri and he took all his toys with him.
I believe he's still using the "boom".

mr.chevrolet · Feb 17, 2010

not an engine, but a tranny pulling story. i was 16, had a pristine 52 chevy, old lady car that i bought at Yenko Chevrolet ( $45 bucks included plate and title tranfer). well i blew the power glide trying to go fast and my friend Don and i decided to pull it for the rebuild. the trans crossmember was rivited on and we couldnt figure out how to remove it. so we just hammer and chisled a big hole in the mint floorboards and wrestled it out. spilled fluid all over the like new seats and somehow even got it on the head liner. stole one of my moms blankets so we wouldnt get it on our pants when we re-installed it.

blojectedj · Feb 17, 2010

Learned about "leverage" the hard way. My FIL to be at the time had a ford jubilee tractor and he broke the tranny trying to stay out of a ravine. I of course knew everything there was to know about mechanicing when I'm 19 or 20 so he and I commence to splitting the tractor. Me being the smart guy I was/am I decide to block up under the rearend and tranny and unbolt the engine from the tranny and roll the front end and engine forward as a unit. All goes well and when its all unbolted I pick up a fence post and run it under the oil pan and tell my future FIL to grab it, hes on one side and I am on the other. We start lifting and pushing the engine and front of the tractor forward away from the tranny. Well imagine the front of this tractor, front axle 2 feet forward of where we are lifting, and we finally wiggle and push this damn thing far enough for the input shaft to clear the clutch. WHAM, the weight of this is more than I had imagined and my future FIL can't handle it and it takes him and his end of the post to the ground. When his end hits the ground it puts so much weight on me that I go to the ground also. After my head quit spinning and I regained my senses I found that my pants had ripped from waistband in front to waistband in rear, I mean my pants had exploded!!! We finally borrowed an A frame and finished the job, I learned a little bit about leverage that day.

Rickybop · Feb 17, 2010

Enjoyed the story. Enjoyed the picture...and the mental picture. Not a waste of time at all. Glad to see some of you guys stick up for civility. Nice to know the good outweighs the bad.

My old buddy Roy Montgomery, who has been hot rodding for a very long time, often shares stories from days gone by. I always enjoy them...even if he does tell the same one only a month later. LOL! Here's one of his. It's a towing story too.

Many years ago, when junk model Ts were plentiful, a salvage-yard owner hired Roy and his dad to move about a dozen old cars from a location a few miles away to the guy's yard. The standard method would've been, of course, to move one car at a time with the old model AA tow-truck they had. But Roy and his dad decided to move all of the cars at once. Somehow, they secured the cars together end to end, and locked the steering of each car to keep the wheels straight. They hooked the tow-truck to the front car, to pull with, and used one of the cars, which ran, to push at the rear. I remember Roy told me that they ran one or the other of the pull/push vehicles backward to take advantage of the extremely low reverse gear-ratio...I think it was the rear vehicle. Regardless, they moved all these cars over the course of a few miles in this manner. The line of cars wouldn't make it around the corners at the intersections, so they would puuuuush the back section of cars around the corner, almost like a rear-steer fire-truck. It took them a few hours, but they finally made their way back to the salvage-yard, and parked the cars out front along the road. Hearing them arrive, the yard owner came out front, and not being able to see the line of cars from his vantage point, thought they had arrived with only one car in tow. He began to yell, asking Roy and his dad where they had been all day, and didn't they know they had to get all these cars there by tonight?...and the day was about gone!!! Roy's dad said to the guy, "No, no...take a look." And had the yard-owner step further out into the road. Now the guy could see the complete line of cars. Roy said the yard-owner stood there for quite a while with his mouth hanging open. LOL!
This incident took place out away from any busy areas, and a long time ago, when things were different. We could, of course, never get away with anything like this today. That's why I like stories such as this, and the ones that modelacitizen and the rest of you have shared. They are pieces of the past...stories of things that happened during a very different world than the one we live in today. Things that will probably never happen again. And who among us doesn't enjoy that?...Pipe down, shiny. Rick

Sir Woosh · Feb 17, 2010

Got must love hot rodders, because he's saved my butt a few times. Decided to pull an engine and trans together using a cheap come along once. Threw a driveshaft across the rafters in the garage and got to pulling.

I had the oil pan as high as my chin because I didn't want to take the radiator support out of the 57 Chevy truck. Heard a PING and felt something light bounce off my head. It was a snap ring from one of the main pins holding the winch together. Saw it twisting which is what pushed the ring off so it was right on the edge of coming apart. No one else around of course. I pushed the truck back out from under the bomb. Took a pair of vise grips and locked them on the section coming apart and slowly cranked it down to a cart. Whew! Found out how long I could hold my breath that time........
Sir Woosh

blojectedj · Feb 17, 2010

Sir Woosh said: ↑

Threw a driveshaft across the rafters in the garage and got to pulling.

And I thought I was the only one crazy enough to do that! Even now when I know better I am using the rafters in my shop to lift the body off and on my henryj!
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Sir Woosh · Feb 17, 2010

I used that driveshaft and log chain a lot. Got a cherry picker just a few years ago finally. Found I couldn't jump out of the way quite as fast as I used to.................

eugene vik · Feb 17, 2010

got stuck helping some yo hos put a engine in a 1963 chev V8 the usuall basket case missing parts and bolts, got it running and was idleing very fast, guess i stuck my arm underneath and put it in reverse and the exhaust pipe on left side come down on my arm and fried me, MUCHO PAIN still rember that big skin burner, sure lost interest in that job then

ajmopar · Feb 17, 2010

Walked into a buddy's garage one day to have him say, "can you pump the engine hoist up a bit?" Turns out he had his thumb between the bracket and the motor mount and tapped the mount to get it in the hole. It dropped on his thumb and he couldn't reach the hoist to pull it off again. He said it had only been a few minutes, wow was his thumb mashed!

I am pretty careful when I work alone now . . .

ol'chevy · Feb 17, 2010

Back at the uncle's junkyard/ garage....when in high school. I was around for the summer, and a friend was working for him. Had a CitationX 10 needed the engine pulled. He pushed it up the hill into the garage, then jacked it up and put on tall jackstands that looked like half axles. He told us to remove this, this, and this while he was gone to the parts house. We did as told. You know that if you remove 4 bolts from those things, the engine and trans will fall slam out the bottom? Then the body rocks back, clears the engine in the floor, falls off the jack stands, then rolls down the hill into the side of a junk van. We are all standing there with the what the hell? look on our faces when he comes around the corner from the parts house and laughs at us.

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Funny old engine pulling story

rusty28a
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