On Wed, 5 Aug 1998 07:24:54 -0700 "Patrick Bailey" <pbailey@qnet.com>
writes:
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Rick Morrison <gofastmg@juno.com>
>To: wmgilroy@lucent.com <wmgilroy@lucent.com>
>Cc: mgs@autox.team.net <mgs@autox.team.net>
>Date: Tuesday, August 04, 1998 8:49 PM
>Subject: Re: Stupid owner tricks
>
>
>>Find that nut!
>> A few years back, when I worked in the service department of a local
>>Pontiac dealer, a mechanic did exactly that. He finally decided that
>the
>>carb nut had fallen on the floor and gotten kicked into oblivion.
>Grabbed
>>a new nut and re-installed the carb.
>> You guessed it. The nut had fallen into the intake, somehow got past
>a
>>intake valve with lillte damage to the valve,and wedged itself
>between
>>the piston and head. Besides breaking the piston, it also cracked the
>>head and gouged a monster chunk out of the cylinder wall.
>> What started out as a simple carb repair, ended up with us (the
>>dealership) installing a new engine into the customers car. Needless
>to
>>say, the owner (not a happy camper) kindly requested the mechanic not
>let
>>the door hit his A** on the way out.
>>I had that happen to a '57 Buick 30 years ago for some obscure reason
>I
>thought a chrome air cleaner would look neat so I heard a clunk when I
>was
>putting it on but I had all the bolts so I thought it was just my
>imagination,well when I fired it up it started making a banging sound
>so
>because I was young and the car was a piece of crap I drove around
>like that
>for a while until I could pull the head and found the screw had split
>in
>half and was imbedded in the top of the piston!I pried it off bolted
>the
>head back on and drove it for another year!!
>Pat
WHile in college I made my party and drinking money by working for a
local Motorcycle dealer.
One young customer, a real nice kid, had worked his little butt off and
saved his money to buy a nice used Ducati 350. Boy was he proud of that
bike!.
Well, one day he comes into the shop with the bike on the back of his
dad's pickup, and the kid was about in tears. The engine had seized.
TIGHT!. I couldn't get it to turn over no matter what.
Could we fix it? Yeah, but we won't know what's involved til we get
inside the engine.
OK, I'll get the money somehow.
Owner to me: "Find out what's wrong and get him out as cheap as
possible, but the best repair you can"
Pulled the head and there was the problem. A valve has broken off at the
stem base, and imbedded itself half in the piston crown. Only 5 small
knicks in the combustion chamber, and not a mark on the valve seat!.
I put a good used piston in, a new valve, used the dremel tool to
smoothe the nicks in the head, put is back to gether an the kid rode the
bike for the next 3 years or so.
We kept the piston with the valve head on the counter as a paper weight
Rick Morrison
72 MGBGT
74 Midget
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