[Mr-Bratt]

Originally Posted by Overkillphil

WOW Jim, you welded aluminum to steel?!!

NO the flywheel to the torque converter, The bell housing lined up.
Jim

[Tom Vaught]

I bought a 1960 Chevy Impala back in the 60s to drive so that I did not have to drive my 64 GTO in the winter time. Bought the car from a mail delivery guy. Engine/ trans had well over 100K when I bought it. Trunk floor was rotted out, 2x4s across the frame to hold a spare tire from falling though the trunk. Gas tank was good as was the basic mechanicals as the guy took care of that stuff. Engine was a 283 cid V8.

Played basketball a lot in the winters at the Catholic School Gym with my buddies, who were Catholic, and who could get me in the place. I knew being a Babtist and playing ball in Catholic territory would come back to haunt me someday.

Finished playing ball one night and came outside. The ground was frozen over big time. The old Chebby was in some mud ruts in the grass. Fired it up and put it in reverse. Car would not move out of the ruts. Frozen solid. Rev it up a bit more, still doesn't move. Get pis$ed and rev it uo to 5000 on the old Sun tach in the car and do a drop into reverse from neutral. POS Chebby engine was still stuck but now the trans is wounded big time and making a lot of noise. Shut it off and hitch a ride home with some buddies.

Car sits on Church property throughout the winter, The FATHER is NOT HAPPY AT ALL. My buddies see me in the High School where we all go to school and say: "You got to get that car off Church property, the 'Founding Fathers of the Community' are give Father a lot of lip about it, say it looks like HeL*"

One day I get a friend with a Ford Pick-Up 5 bucks to "rope tow" me in the car out to my Grandfather's farm. It sits on blocks for the next winter as I try and fix the POS transmission. No Luck.

It is now Summer time, the GTO is on the road, and my pals come by to visit and Bench Race. One guy asks "You ever going to do anything with that old chevy?" I say, "Yep, I am going to blow it up today."

My pals and I drain the oil, drain the coolant, put a brick on the gas pedal, fire it up, and she goes to 4700 on the tach. We watch a few minutes and the sucker is still running. Grab some lawn chairs and some sandwiches and pop and it is still running. EVENTUALLY the engine gets so hot it locks up from the heat. KILLED THAT SUCKER!!

Car sits for a few more months and the mail delivery guy says "You still got my old car, I need another engine, I froze the block in the car last winter and need another "winter car".

I said, The car is "out at the house but I don't know if the engine is any good"

We drive back out there in the GTO and he looks over the car. Says he will bring some "aired up" tires, and have it towed back to a garage. Told him the trans was toast. He said he only needed the engine anyway.

Hear from him in the fall and he says "we got that engine installed in the car and boy it runs great." Asked him how much it was to rebuild it. He said we did not rebuid it, we stuck it right it the car and used the other transmission. Car ran I gues another two winters until he hit a telephone pole and totaled the car while driving drunk one night. YOU CAN'T KILL ONE OF THOSE 283 CID CHEBBY ENGINES!

Tom Vaught

ps My pals think the bearings were fine, after the oil change by the garage. They think the engine stopped running because it over-heated.

[Region Warrior]

Ok, back at work.

The following summer he bought a beautiful lite green(shade?) 72 GP.
We knew the Cat wouldnt servive another summer.
A week later after a few cold ones one night, we took the 68 cat out to the 4WD trails.
After racing around a few times, my buddy decided it was time to make a new one, so he floored it and took off thru a field with 6' high weeds and small trees.
About 10-15 minutes of run'm down, he hit a large down'd tree and a large limb came up thru the r/r floor board and into the rear seat bottom cushion, stopping the car.
After flooring it back-n-forth, he finally got it unstuck and off the tree.
Thats when he noticed the water light on, and i noticed steam out the front end.
A small tree had gone thru the grill, condenser, and radiator, and was still stick'n out.
So what did we do?
We drove it the 2 miles back home, parked it, and had a few more cold ones.

Next morning when we came out both front wheels where bent and flat.
1 rear was flat, and the other 1/2 way.
Only one low beam worked. The other 3 where broken.
Both fenders and doors had dents, and the whole car was Brown.
Couldnt tell it was Verdero.
We found another radiator and wheels/tires, hd lps, etc at the wrecking yard, put it together..and started it up.
Thats when i noticed the check engine light was on.
No oil on the stick...hole in o/p.
So we got some of that gas tank epoxy, let it sit a few hours and added used oil from my last FB's oil change.

That night we took the Cat out and burned off another set of nearly bald tires.
More Cat stories later. have to work some.

[Danimal]

Ahhh, the 283. Look up "reliability" in Websters and I' sure you'll see a picture of it.

Before I had my '64 impala coupe, which had a 283, I asked my friends fathers who were all local farmers and former highway hellions whether I should rebuild the 283 or get a 350 or 400.

Every one of them had a story about not being able to kill a 283. Every one of them, like 12 different folks. 3 of them were the same story about the same brothers in the mid-70's, in which the oil pan was completely removed and the powerglide left in "low" at full throttle -flat out -for 9 miles.

Still ran.

As a result of the legends and replies, I rebuilt the 283 and it ran like a beast. In fact, I still have it in my father's garage in Iowa.

Pit-crewed on a few demos back in high school and was flat out amazed at how long engines lasted being run at 5K-7K+ RPM all night long....and then seeing the same car with the same engine at a different demo the next weenend. and the next.

Most just blow the radiator and the driver shut 'em down. I only saw one engine truly "grenade"

that 225 slat 6 is another dependable one. so is the FE Ford. '65 Galaxy I know of with a 352-4bbrl went 90 miles at speeds between 110 and 130 and that was after it had 120K miles on it. sumbich could run.

[steve]

i knew there were good stories out there !

[400 4spd.]

This was during my high school years. A buddy and I once "discovered" a '58 Chevy Impala that had been abandoned behind a bar. This was around 1974. The bar owner wanted it gone, turned a blind eye, and we obliged. It ended up (hidden) in my buddy's garage. It was an ugly green 4-door with a 348 4 bbl. I can still remember the glass fuel filter.
After a couple of weeks it was much lighter, and would do some killer late night burn-outs on the adjoining neighborhood streets. We were soon bored with it and decided to lock the engine up. So we fed it small metallic items. I learned that a 348 can eat LOTS and LOTS of small nuts and bolts at W.O.T. before going sour. Then we pulled the heads and performed an autopsy.
The '58 ended up as landfill on someone's property.

[Region Warrior]

The Cat servived till the next winter of parking lot carts and ice burning rubber.
One night the trany finally went.
Back to the yard for another for a next weekend R&I.
Only problem we didnt have a garage, and there was at least a 1' of snow on the ground.
Well...we where young...so we did it in his driveway.
Pulled it out on Saturday. Took a few warm ups in the house.
Next morning was another 6" of snow and 20 mph winds.
So we shoveled and packed snow on the sides and rear of the car, and put one a hot spot lamp underneath to keep warmer. Slide in under the front.
We got it done in no time. By this time we had a pit crew style of work'n on cars.
That night, back out to the lots and back roads.

I'll tell ya how the Cat finally died tomarrow.

[Lightfoot]

Originally Posted by 400 4spd.

This was during my high school years. A buddy and I once "discovered" a '58 Chevy Impala that had been abandoned behind a bar. This was around 1974. It was an ugly green 4-door with a 348 4 bbl.
After a couple of weeks it was much lighter, and would do some killer late night burn-outs on the adjoining neighborhood streets. We were soon bored with it and decided to lock the engine up. So we fed it small metallic items. I learned that a 348 can eat LOTS and LOTS of small nuts and bolts at W.O.T. before going sour. Then we pulled the heads and performed an autopsy.

With apologies for being technical: It could not have been an Impala if it was a 4-door. '58 Impala was coupe or covertible only.
You're excused, since it was over thirty years ago.

I would have never been able to bring myself to deliberately harm a 348. Love those W motors.
I wonder if it had something to do with the combustion chamber entirely in the cylinder, not the head, why the 348 would eat so much debris.

[Geeto-Tiger]

In high school, my buddy got a high mileage Comet that his dad was going to junk. Our goal was to destroy it before it went to the j-yard.. We drained the oil, ran it for an hour and poured BB's down the carb. Nothing would cause it to shut off. We then drove it down to Hines Park and drove over the rocks that were used to border the dirt road. We managed to get the oil pan pushed in and the crank was really knocking. It made it home and never quit running so we gave up and did an autopsy. The pistons were really peened by the BB's.

[400 4spd.]

Originally Posted by Lightfoot

With apologies for being technical: It could not have been an Impala if it was a 4-door. '58 Impala was coupe or covertible only.
You're excused, since it was over thirty years ago.

I would have never been able to bring myself to deliberately harm a 348. Love those W motors.
I wonder if it had something to do with the combustion chamber entirely in the cylinder, not the head, why the 348 would eat so much debris.

You are absolutely correct. Thanks for catching that. It was a Biscayne, two tone green, two tail lamps per side. The '58 Impalas were too cool to destroy.

[stimpy]

after a crappy marriage and a crappy divorce, I wound up with the 85 suburban ( of couse as it had payments and 160K miles , My Dodge Demon ( was going thru a crisis and Became a mopar guy but I am healthy now and Back to Ponchos ) and a POS Escort Pony with the 1.9 L and stick ( actually I shouldn't knock it as it was only $500 as the clutch was worn out @43,000 mi and the owner was well to say nicely mechanically stupid ) well after all was done < i sold the Burb and got me a new pick up ( the one I still have today ) the dealer wanted no part of the escort ( it only had 120K mi ) and I hated the car as I was forced to drive it by the ex when I was married and it took some of my Mopar money , so a freind of mine said lets go racing . What??? drag racing ... You got to be kidding right? what a 19 sec car?? well he was a firm believer in nitrous , and being the motor was EFI he thought it would be a good canidate to try out a new Kit so we wired it up to the horn button for our grand experiment , so we went to the track ( Byron) towing the Escort , well the first run no gas ran a mid 18 , not bad , then he poped in a 50 pill , I gassed it in 3rd and 4th ran a 16 not bad .impresseda bunch of our racing buddies , so we bumped the pill to 75 , ran hitting it again in 3-4th gear , low 15's not bad at all but getting hard to control ( torque steering ) was told to turn it on in all gears , did it and the car was all over the place almost walled it , one of the track workers told me the tower wanted to talk to me . well they asked If I had a problem , told them what we where doing so after that I had to do bye runs , time for a 100 pill ( at did the this point the fuel system had to be taxed out ) did the burn out , staged and nailed it off the line , that car was going left then right then left then right and then started to shake and pop , I ran a 14.20 Wow But now the car is shaking like a paint shaker and popping , I drive it back to pits and shut it off everyone is laughing not believing what it ran . I ran the gas in every gear and apparantly bent the rods and possibly Holed a piston ( it didn't smoke but smelt horible ) and it wouldn't re start , so we pulled the N2O system off and asked where the nearest junkyard was , well some kid overheard me and asked how much I wanted for it , I told him its Broke , he didn't care he just needed a body for his escort which was totaled and had the motor for it , I got $75 the kid showed up the next week with the car rebuilt (spectating ) it paid for the Nitrous refill , the entrance fees and the gas getting up there and I got to Beat the snot out of it and had fun . ( the exwife asked my buddy about the car as she noticed it was missing and he told he What I did to it , and she said I was stupid I could have sold it for $500 , heck blowing it up was worth the loss of $500 . Oh and I have to give some respect to the guys who designed that lil 1.9 as its a stout builtlittle sucker , 100 ho nitrous and it didn't gernade but if you fry a waterpump you wipe out the motor ....

[4dblnkldude]

Yes, I tried to blow up a few. All chevies coincidentally a 72 nova with a 250 strait, a 305 in an early 80's monte, and a 3.8 in a 83 malibu. The 305 went the easiest, no oil and about 40 minutes at 1500. The 3.8 didn't blow but I drove it to the scrapyard. The 250 was a bit stubborn, the drain plug was out and it ran for a while, then a buddy of mine started pouring diffferent fluids in it like water, soda, beer, and it eventually went.

[Overkillphil]

Hmmm, interesting. My flexplates were always aluminum all the way back to my 67 GP 400/400. Where are you seeing a steel flexplate other than an aftermarket SFI unit?

[Bob Timmermans]

This is a nice example of how to handle such a task
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrk6vsb77xk

[Rob B]

One of the easiest ways to destroy a car is to put a woman behind the wheel of it!

[71 T/A]

Originally Posted by Rob B

One of the easiest ways to destroy a car is to put a woman behind the wheel of it!

Now that is funny. But true at the same time.

I have to admit after our family had a 67 Impala with a 283 that that's a tough engine to kill.

[steve]

i watched all 3 of those videos. thats some funny stuff !!!!

[The Boss]

Originally Posted by Bob Timmermans

This is a nice example of how to handle such a task
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrk6vsb77xk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc4Ksz3nHM&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfZDtC9kjVk&NR=1

LMAO!!!

[Bjorn]

during my Army training as a Ranger (Swedish Army) we practiced a lot with plastic explosives and other "bombs" in many different ways...

a few old cars were blown up as 'practice' ...does that count?

there was very little left...I guess you can picture the scenario if you have seen pics from Iraq.....using IEDs....nothing new.....we already did that in the early 60s...

[71 T/A]

I remember a guy in the early 1990s, I believe, who would look for foreign cars to destroy. He would do everything possible to wreck 'em even dropping huge weight on them. He was on the national news and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing loser Hondas and Toyotas demolished.