Originally Posted By: SubyRoo
I once read many years ago that Nissan bought the rights to the design of the L series engine from Mercedes. Does anyone know if there is any truth to that?
Far too similar to be a coincidence, but they must've had the blueprint negatives in the wrong way round as the Nissan had the intake and exhaust manifold on the opposite side to the Mercedes.
I once had a 1957 International AS110, that was a great engine, but pretty thirsty at 4mpg. Expensive to run for an apprentice on low wages - after burning all my fuel on the weekend I'd walk the streets with a 4 gallon tin and length of hose to get enough fuel to get me to nightschool during the week. I went on a trail riding weekend once with our motorcycles on the back, my mate offered to pay his share of the fuel, but on our first fill it cost $10. He freaked out, he'd never put $10 of fuel into a car before - and he worked at a service station.
Before I got the AS110, we had a customer with one at work, one day they drive it onto the forecourt and start pouring can after can of water into the radiator, and then it won't start. We pulled the head off, and No5 combustion chamber was missing, just a rusty water jacket and 2 valve stems. Some very slight marks on the piston and no sign missing metal. The truck was sold to a wrecker for $25. Can't believe it was running like that.
One time we had an FJ40 Landcruiser in, it was stolen and recovered, and I was doing a mechanical check on it. It was running fine, but lost power under load....sitting idling on 6 cyls sometimes it'd give a hiccup and go twaaaannnng!!! I didn't know what that was, so pulled the head to find out - turning the engine over I noticed there were 3 pistons at TDC....the top was off one piston, and had been running like that.