On Tue, 27 Mar 2018 09:28:23 -0700, wrote:

On Mon, 26 Mar 2018 23:34:45 -0400, Clare Snyder
wrote:

On Mon, 26 Mar 2018 21:28:11 -0400, William Bagwell
wrote:

On Sat, 24 Mar 2018 19:52:49 -0400, Gerry
wrote:

I insisted that a former employee notdrive his car until he retieved
the air cleaner wing nut he dropped into and through the carb.

Have seen a tiny clipped end of a cotter key break a piston. Can
only imagine what a wing nut would do.

BTW it is possible to change a piston in an 8 cylinder 64 Impala
with out removing the engine. PITA and more trouble than it was
worth...
Possible to do a COMPLETE rebuild in the chassis - including
replacing main bearings. On an early one you can even change the rear
main seal - WITHOUT REMOVING THE TRANSMISSION.

On the same vein, had a couple of young fellows pull into the service
station lot back in about 1969 or 1970 with a '55 or '56 Pontiac 6 cyl
that was knocking pretty bad. This was in Elmira Ontario, and they
were heading for newfoundland. They asked to borrow some tools and
dropped the oil pan, pulled the cap from the bad rod bearing, and
after cutting a piece of leather from his belt and getting a radiator
hose clamp, he clamped the leather atound the crank-pin, and jammed
the piston to the top of the cyl. After bolting the pan back on and
putting the old oil back in, it started and ran- quietly but with a
pronounced miss.

We gat a thank-you note from him a week later from Come-By-Chance Nfld
saying they made it home with no more problems.
A guy I used to work with told me about a truck he bought that ran a
little rough. He got out of the Navy somewhere close to the East Coast
and bought an old truck from a farmer to drive back to California. He
said that even though it had a rough idle it seemed OK on the highway
test drive. And the price was right. When he got to his folk's house
his dad and him determined that one cylinder wasn't firing. Pulling
the head they found a round chunk of wood had been hammered into the
cylinder. So they just put the head back on.

For some values of "ran a little rough"... shakes head

--
"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined
and that we can do nothing to change it look before they cross
the road." --Steven Hawking