Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[consul 57]

has anyone noticed on these tv car repair progs that there seems to be a lot of cars running around without anti freeze and not had any for ages?
time & time again we see the mechanics take off the bottom hose to be met with rusty water and not blueish or redish water.
the flipping bangers merc recently had a lot of the block waterways solid with crud, i know years ago my uncle would drain the car in winter at night then refill it in the morning as anti freeze was expensive but today it is not that dear and with ally headed engines a must for anti reaction prohibition.
you do wonder what else these cars are short of, engine, gearbox & axle oil i wonder.
maybe people just go by the shiny paintwork nowadays!

[Ray White]

I may have mentioned this before ...but the thing that seems to be a consistent feature of these programmes is the way in which cars which may have sat idle for many years are encouraged to run at any cost. No thought seems to be paid to the internals of the engine that will have suffered from years of condensation and rust. They never show the oil being changed let alone coolant and antifreeze.!

It beggars belief but - as an aside - the previous owner of my MG TC had the engine running with the original 1960s oil filter still fitted.

[alastairq]

[Ray White]

[consul 57]

my brother in law bought a 45,000 mile astra, mk2 i think at auction, he realised it needed an oil change, as it looked like it had not had one in the previous 40,000 miles!
as soon as he did that the engine gave way, could not take new oil i guess
lol.

[Ray White]

[V8 Nutter]

Where I grew up in the 1950's was close to a timber merchants garage, where he kept repaired and serviced all his vehicles. In the winter every evening the radiators would be drained, and refilled the next morning, he had two Unipower timber tractors, a GMC 6x6 with a fifth wheel and a long timber trailer and usually a couple of other ex WD vehicles, usually Canadian Ford or Chevrolet. After starting they would be allowed to tick over for about 15 minutes. The diesel and petrol fumes would drift into our house, if all the modern theories are correct I should have died from respiratory illness years ago or my brain should have been destroyed by lead poisoning from the leaded petrol fumes. On very cold days when starting the Gardner diesels in the Unipowers one driver would hold a piece of burning newspaper soaked in diesel over the air intake while another driver pressed the starter, they would usually start in a huge cloud of diesel smoke

[Ray White]