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This was posted on a Buick page but I thought some here might enjoy this.
I knew my grandfather had repaired a cracked block on his (now my) 36 buick model 60 back in the 1960s. I knew how he had done it and had heard of this type of repair before but I could never see it till I pulled the manifolds off for another unrelated problem (post coming soon)
Holy massive patch batman. This is crazy. And the thing is it does not leak at all. That is a sheet of copper with a load of 1/4 20 bolts tapped in crushing a piece of rubber against the block. I ain't touching that thing.
He grew up in the depression and had that mindset till he died. This is how you did things back then when you had no money.
I am sure many of you will be horrified but to me it is something special. I guess if I ever have to rebuild the motor I will look for a replacement instead. Till then it is part of the cars history.
Mass production and cheap off-shore merchandise have created a throw-away generation. It's good to see how past generations made do with what they had, when a dollar saved was a dollar earned. My Dad was born in 1901 and raised 5 children during the depression...I grew up witnessing what could be done with a few raw materials and a lot of ingenuity. Thanks for sharing, brought a smile to my face.
When mechanics and repair shops could actually *repair* things instead of just replace parts! Who else remembers using a piece of harness leather to repair babbitt bearing connecting rods when they would start knocking a little?
My grandpa and his brother were depression people and I appreciate their ingenuity and frugality when it came to doing repair but some were just downright scary and dangerous.
My grandpa would go around the neighborhood and salvage lumber from houses that were being torn down, He pulled the nails and straighten them out and put them in a coffee can. He'd also salvage plumbing pipes. When my dad would go over to help with repairs on his house my grandpa would away insist on using the salvaged parts making the repair job a lot harder and take a lot more time. Most times the salvage items were literally junk. My favorite was the electrical projects grandpa used to do. His house only had two lights in the basement, one at each end. In each light socket he would screw in the light/socket adapters. He'd have up to 5-6 in each light socket and would run his table saw and other powers tools off of them, He'd start popping the screw in fuses so he insert a penny behind them. At time there would be sparks flying out of the fuse box.
His brother had an old air compressor in his garage. The short electrical cord had a female plug at the end and the made an extension cord using two conductor lamp cord and two male plugs, one end he'd plug into the female plug on the compressor and one in the wall. That wasn't the worst though, the tank on the compressor was rusting out so he'd screw an old sheet metal screw into the rust holes. The thing looked like a pipe bomb ready to blow any minute.
Both of them did their own car repairs, now those were interesting at times also.
When mechanics and repair shops could actually *repair* things instead of just replace parts! Who else remembers using a piece of harness leather to repair babbitt bearing connecting rods when they would start knocking a little?
Who now a days has harness leather? Who under 60 even knows what harness leather is?
Along with.........who these days knows what babbitt bearing rods are?????? LOL
Correct. I got a '37 Buick some years back and I've heard of babbitt bearing but didn't really know anything about them. I'm sure my dad could have educated me on them, that's the kind of stuff we lose with every passing generation. I wonder what I can tell my kids about but they are millennials and know pretty much everything. I know, they don't hesitate to tell me.
Gotta love the old timers! Great repair!!
Folks that were raised in the depression never let it go. When you have nothing, you have to make the most of it.
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