Built like a Mercedes (?)

I've read what you have written and it is mostly bollocks.

Huw

 

Truly amusing.... 2500lbs capacity and 5510 towing. Laughable at best.

Right, thus my point that Americans are harder on our vehicles. Three
quarter and one ton vehicles here in the States are capable of far more than
your "one ton" vehicles, because they NEED to be capable at that level.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

No but your childish 'mine is bigger than yours' attitude shows you up for

A man who resorts to personal insult has lost the argument based on facts.

Have a nice day Huw.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

Yes I knew you would be saying "my dick is bigger than your dick". All so

Ahh yes, the bitter reply of a person who has lost after finding out that
the facts prove him wrong. Its not about penis size, its about truck
capacity.

Don't be claiming you have such tough, heavy duty equipment if you haven't
got it, the ladies hate when that happens.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

I've read what you have written and it is mostly bollocks.

Thus admitting that you haven't bothered with actually researching your
statements. I suggest you start by reading "Railway Age", an excellent
publication for the rail industry. Then, "Trains" and "Railfan and
Railroad", both excellent publications as well. Then perhaps you could look
at the railroad's websites for more real info.

Moral of the story here Huw... bring facts.

That you haven't got any isn't my fault.
--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

We have a right one here folks!

Huw

 

Probably true. I've seen it posted here before, in fact many have said "
Max, what a big prick!"


Max, be gentle with your new toy will ya.

<GBFG

Roy

 

Agreed. Top posting is occasionally done in a manner that is

Before you stumbled onto usenet we had all agreed this was the
way to follow up a post. Top posting is for newbies.

 

Oh, it is the "we had all" boy's. I've two words for you folks and they are
not "get well". I'm sure you are aware that NOBODY or any WE ALL set's any
rules. You may ask nicely for people to follow a pattern, but that's as far
as you all go.

Roy

 

I fail to see any logic behind your assertion.

Graham

 

Huw wrote:

200,000+ miles was not uncommon life on a lot of '60s American engines,
revisionist history and memories of GM-built junk dominating people's
memories notwithstanding. I've put that much on several engines of that
era personally. The slant-6 in particular was notorious for just running
and running and running and running regarless of neglect (you could kill
one through deliberate abuse because it was a long-stroke engine and
dropping it into a low gear at 70 mph and popping the clutch would
pretty well stretch the rod bolts). If I had a dollar for every person I
met who said "I'm just going to run it until the slant-6 blows up and
then put a 440 in" and *never* managed to kill the slant-6, I'd...
well... I'd be able to take the family out for pizza at least

 

The failure would appear to be on your end, then. The statement made was
clear and cogent.

 

A few European cars reached that service but not without a rebuild or two if
my memory serves me. 70's had better engines. 80's would be better still and
would certainly reach 150,000 miles given normal service.
Most engines from the early 90's to today are capable of reaching 200,000
miles no problem but the majority never do because of age related reasons.
The cars are scrapped before the mechanicals wear out. However an ever
increasing number do high mileages in a short period with their original
owners. Second and third owners tend to cover much fewer miles.


Huw

 

That was very much NOT the case over here. Engines of the 70s and 80s
saw dramatically reduced lifespans, for a number of reasons. For one
thing, draconian emission control mandates kicked in in 71, again in 73,
and again in 75. The carmakers were attempting to comply with basically
inadequate technology. Band-aids like putting the engines into an
excessively retarded timing mode to combat NOx (and burning exhaust
valves in the process), operating lean throughout the entire operating
regime to combat HC and CO (Lord knows how many 70s heads I've seen
cracked between intake and exhaust valve seat due to hot, lean
combustion and a perpetually hot exhaust valve from the retarded
timing). For another thing, the fuel crisis and emissions crunch
effectively slowed R&D on new engines and on replacement tooling. A LOT
of 70s engine blocks were cast and machined on worn-out tooling. Years
ago I saw a comparison of key measurements taken on a 70s Chrysler block
compared to a 1950s vintage Hemi block and the 50s Hemi was practically
blueprinted from the factory, while the late block had a pretty bad deck
height variation on both decks. And it was pretty good by the standards
of the day. If you want to see horrific production variation, look at a
big-block Chevy (454). It was so bad that there used to be an industry
designing and selling esoteric things like custom-offset roller rockers,
so that weekend racers could fine-tune their production blocks with the
lifter bores cast-in as much as 4-6 degrees off so that they wouldn't
have several cylinders with radically different valve timing than the
others!

On the other hand, oil technology *was* getting better in that time
frame. While all 60s engines were *capable* of long life, not all of
them got fed decent oil. I don't know if you've ever seen an engine run
on some of the ancient dino oils, like old Quaker State and Pennzoil
from the 70s, or some of the refinery brands too... but WOW. The stuff
would about turn to chewing gum in an engine. Today you can pretty much
buy any oil and it will at least be harmless. That was not at all true
in 1965. Nor really in 1980, for that matter.

To be honest, even the "bad" American engines of the 70s could do so IF
the owner didn't just keep hammering on it when it started to ping
because the analog vacuum octopus operated EGR wasn't working anymore,
or because the primitive computer-feedback controlled carb was refusing
to enrich when it should, etc. etc. etc. But the cars of the 70s and 80s
were so soulless and pathetic that I think most of the owners hoped
they'd blow up sooner rather than later.

 

but then pooh, i fail to see any logic period, everytime you post.

 

Well, they sure wouldn't want to hear what I towed over Vail Pass, Colorado
with a 318 (5.2L) in that old 79 D-150, would they?

Nor would they want to hear what it gets for fuel economy either.

Budd

 

Interesting because as I remember it there were few emmission controls in
Europe until catalytic convertors became mandatory some time around 1989/90.
Before this we had a decade of 'lean burn' engines which were surprisingly
economical, especially as during this time fuel injection became dominant
either in single point or multi point types. The exhaust was not clean
though and did stink. Even after catalysts became mandatory the fuel was not
cleaned of sulphur and bad egg gas and failed Nicasil was a problem up until
about 95.

And yes, oils improved. That is the same on both sides of the pond because
the American Petroleum Institute standards predominate and set the minimum
standard for oils everywhere.




While all 60s engines were *capable* of long life, not all of

No we didn't have that problem but we didn't have the emmission controls
either.

We had the 112hp 0-60 in 8.2 seconds VW Golf GTi and the Peugeot 206 GTi
affordable pocket rockets. Lots of high performance bigger cars as well. I
had a Golf GTi and an MG Montego and an Audi Quattro. All lovely cars in
their way and substantially high performance. Then there was the Rover 3.5
Vittesse and lots of exotics from Italian Ferrari, Lamborghini etc. The
start of BMW M series. The list goes on.

Huw

 

In many ways, the European timetable for phasing in emission standards
made a lot more sense than the US. We were the guinea pigs. We also had
to do it before digital EFI was possible. We broke a lot of engines in
the process, and our cars got a bad rap in that time frame, too. In some
ways it was deserved because the cars *did* break. But the reasons they
broke were largely because of government edict, not bad engineering. A
lot of the early Japanese cars that started the "Japanese cars are more
reliable!" mythos were exempt from the more stringent emission controls
because their engines were small enough.

One thing you guys did very wrong was delay so long in getting rid of
leaded fuel. But you beat the crap out of us in terms of getting better
diesel fuels on the market in recent years.

 

It was uncommon. Generally in the 60's 100,000 miles was about time for
a rebuild. At the very least the heads rebuilt. Sure there were some
great engines that went far longer but they were the exception and not
the rule.

 

That may be true of an engine getting average care. My point is that the
majority of the engines (I'd almost say "all," but some of the Chevrolet
blocks were so soft they'd never make it) were CAPABLE of 200k or much
more, but not everyone gave them decent oil or care. Single-grade oil
was still used more often than multi-grade, and non-detergent oil was
still in common use. I remember both as late as the mid 70s. We always
used good multi-grade oils, and never had any engine from that era from
2 manufacturers (Ford and Chrysler) that did *not* last way, way past
100k miles. In fact the 1949 Plymouth flathead six engine that my
grandfather had rebuilt in 1964 is still running (not frequently, but it
runs fine) on that rebuild today, with about 100k since the rebuild.
I've still got the receipts... a complete overhaul for about $600. Times
have sure changed!