While I have a few minutes before my meeting . . . I thought
I would relay a story of breaking a Fiat engine free for those who
might be squeemish about hammering on theirs. My friend had just put
an engine in his Fiat 850. He got so excited about running it he
forgot to put the oil drain plug in. He was on a grass field so he
didn't notice all the oil he just put in on the ground and started the
engine. After a few minutes of running, the thing seized. He tried a breaker
bar to bust it free with no luck. When I arrived on the scene, we tried pushing
the car as fast as we could and dumping the clutch. No luck, the tires just
skidded. So we tried pushing and then jumping on the back bumper to increase
the traction. No luck. I then had the bright idea to run up behind it with
my 72 olds 98 ((aka buffalo hunter- suckers to the side, know how ya hate my
98, lookin' like the car Green Hornet drove; Public Enemy lyrics)) push it to
10 or so miles an hour and then dump the clutch; no luck. 15 mile an hour
push, no luck. 20 miles an hour push, no luck. All right this is it! 30 mph
dump that clutch, and we got this horrid screeching noise. It sounded like
the transmission had gone through meltdown. But, the engine started and didn't
even burn oil. Ran for 2 years that way until we sold it.
woodruff@caen.engin.umich.edu
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