<VV> RE: TRANS FLUID (somewhat serious, nah!)

[Tony Underwood]

At 04:19 hours 09/10/2004 -0500, Dave Keillor wrote:
>Maybe not urban legend.  When I was in high school back in the '50s, I had a
>'39 Chev with a badly cracked water jacket.  Every day or two I'd drain 1-2
>quarts out of the oil pan (remove the drain plug and wait until the water
>turned to milk-chocolate oil).  The oil looked like chocolate milk and once
>a month or so I'd drain it and replace with $0.05 a quart recycled oil.  The
>car ran that way for three years and was still running fine when I parked it
>for a '50 Olds 98.  If water works in the crankcase, why not in a PG?



Just for funzies...  


I knew a fellow who ran nothing but ATF in the engine of his '67 Pontiac
Cat.   He didn't run it hard or for long distances, just around town.   Not
sure why he decided that this should be done...  maybe so he could tell his
friends that he did it.    Then there's that instance in WW-II in the
pacific where a C-47, in an emergency situation following an attack by a
Japanese fighter plane, had damage to the oil tank on the #1 engine and had
to make a forced landing on an island held by US Marines, who repaired the
damaged tank but had no engine oil on hand to refill it.    However, there
was plenty of Wesson Oil in the mess hall supply tent, so the crew flew the
airplane from the island back to the mainland with one engine lubed with
Wesson cooking oil because that's all that was available.    The flight was
uneventful and the engine suffered no damage during the flight.   Then
there's the guy who taught auto mechanics at the high school I attended
(many years after I'd graduated) and turned an issue about lubrication into
a practical experiment by driving an older Rambler American back and forth
to work with nothing in the engines oil pan but  liquid dishwashing
detergent.    He removed the thermostat so the engine wouldn't get too hot
and "boil its oil" and when the "oil level" ran "low" he topped it off with
water.   Now, he did drive it gently and the engine was a flathead inline
6-banger and this only went on for a couple of weeks but the engine seemed
unharmed by the experience and when switched back to dino juice oil it ran
like it had never been subjected to such treatment.   The running joke was
that this Rambler had the cleanest engine in town; the story of the Rambler
running on Dawn Dishwashing detergent was talked about for several years
afterwards.   

Then my buddy George Winters told me about a '57 Chevy with a cast iron
Powerglide at his friends shop that was in dire straits with transmission
troubles, noisy and slipping in DRIVE badly, had a bashed pan that leaked
most of the ATF out in a day or so (which is likely what caused the other
damage to the transmission), scheduled for trans replacement.   It was
parked across the lot on the downhill side and when the time came to
replace the PG, sure enough it wouldn't move, all its ATF drooled out onto
the ground.   Since nobody wanted to push a 3500 lb sedan up from the lower
end of the lot into the bay,  George and his friends played a hunch and
carried a water bucket to the car and filled the transmission with plain
water, not wanting to refill it with ATF just to replace the transmission
afterwards anyway, and not really caring about what happened to the one in
the car.   Sure enough, they started the car, put it into gear, revved the
engine and the car lurched into LOW and proceeded up the lot and into the
bay, no problems... with the Powerglide filled with water.    I didn't
witness this particular incident but George swears it's true.   I did see
the Rambler with Dawn in the engine and I saw the Pontiac Catalina running
ATF in the engine.   

I believe I've mentioned these events in here before... 


tony..