With all this Honda talk it reminded me of a great P.O. story.
Several years ago I bought a Honda S600 from a guy who lived in a city near here
called Toowoomba. Toowoomba is about 150 kilometres (90 miles) from the City of
Brisbane, our states capitol. He advertised the car for a very small price,
when I
phoned the guy he said the motor doesn't run and he can't figure out what was
wrong with it, he thought it may be a problem with the starter. The car was
ridiculously cheap, and I had a spare engine, so I decided to buy it. I hired a
trailer and went to pick it up. When I got there the car was in great shape
except
it wouldn't start. The guy then told me that it used to run pretty good, but a
while back he was in Brisbane and the engine started to make a "funny" noise, he
was worried about this noise so he thought he had better drive it home as quick
as
he could. So he drove the car 150 kilometres back to Toowoomba, which includes a
climb to over 2000 feet in altitude. It was down on power a bit on the way back
he
said, and the next day the car wouldn't start. I quickly discovered it was
unlikely to be simply a starter problem, the engine woundn't turn by hand, it
was
thoroughly ceased. I talked him down in price a bit more and loaded it onto the
trailer and went home. The next day I thought I would strip the engine and see
exactly what was wrong. I removed the head, and when I looked into the #3
cylinder
I could see straight down into the sump. I looked inside the head, only one
valve
in the #3 combustion chamber. It had dropped a valve and this idiot somehow
managed to drive it for 2 hours while the valve was smashing a giant hole in the
top of the piston, and somehow this tiny all alloy 606cc engine actually made it
back home. The engine block and head had suffered massive cracks and it was
pointless to even think about rebuilding it. Most of the engine went in the
trash,
but I kept the remains of the piston. I still have it today and I enjoy showing
it
to people when I tell them this story.
Alan Bent - Queensland , Australia
1966 Fairlady SP311 - 1965 Silvia CSP311
1966 Fairlady SP311 - 1964 Fairlady 3 seater SP310
1964 Fairlady 3 seater SP310 - 1964 Cedric Wagon WP31
1963 Bluebird P312 - 1963 Bluebird P312
1963 Cedric P31 - 1964 Cedric Wagon 1964
1969 Super Six G130
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Pit/3823/index.html
DemonTSi@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 03/12/2000 4:51:05 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> ajb@squirrel.com.au writes:
>
> > About 10 years ago I owned a few Honda S600s and an S800 coupe. They are fun
> > little cars with amazing engines, the S600 would easily rev past 10000rpm.
>
> Does anyone know of any for sale in the US, or more specifically, in the bay
> area, CA? My body shop guy was telling me the other week that he used to have
> over half a dozen of those little S600s, but he sold all of them before he
> moved over here from denver. Now he's looking at picking one up...and I
> wouldn't mind one myself!
>
> Van
> - http://members.xoom.com/BADROC
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