Neglected Engines You've Cleaned Up

[andyd]

A '56 Chevy 6. I took off the valve cover and spent the afternoon with a putty knife and a bucket scooping sludge out from around the rockers. Just a normal afternoon at the "Garage a half century ago.

 

[HouseTiger]

It's actually amazing the neglect and abuse automotive engines will take and still run !

 

[meep]

^^^ my late grandfather's last car was a new honda civic, I think an '86. For some reason in his later years he decided new cars did not need regular oil changes like the old ones. He always took excellent care of his equipment, so I'm not sure what changed his mind. So we had no idea, and 6 years or so later moved him and grandmother 300 miles to where they'd be closer to my family. I had the pleasure of driving that car when we moved them, which looked mint, idled like a swiss watch, and was one of the nicest vehicles I'd known. It had cloth seats (back when we rode on vinyl, power windows (we had cranks), and a slushbox which was a novelty but cute. I kept getting an oil light on the interstate when hot, so I thought maybe the oil was thin and bought some thickener at a gas station. It'd still come on every 10 minutes but I learned to shut it off, coast, re-start while rolling, and it'd be good for another 10 minutes.

Once they were situated, he took the car to the dealer. still had original oil and filter in it. Granddad said he'd just been topping it up since it was new. It had 60,000 miles on it. They hot-tanked it, and besides being sludged to kingdom come, they found no damage, but they also gave no confidence in its long term reliability either. Car continued to run just fine. 60,000

-m