The Autopian runs under a main rule that our stories have to be Entertaining and Enlightening. It’s our ‘Double-E’ concept that I think makes us different. I love that our comments also technically meet this standard. Time to learn something new.
David wrote about the two silly mistakes he made while building his World War II Jeep. One discovery was a cracked piston, which required David to pull the other three pistons. Spikersaurusrex asks a good question:
Stupid question from a non-wrencher:
Why did you have to pull the 3 good pistons instead of just substituting a good one for the cracked one? Are they not interchangeable?
Hugh Crawford gives a fascinating answer:
Lots of sets of pistons are sorted by weight when they are made, so that the pistons are weight matched to each other, and form a balanced set, otherwise they vibrate like crazy.
The rest of the comments were also great. Sid Bridge:
Wish I could have been there to help out. I would have stood next to you, looked it over, shook my head and said “Yep. It’s cracked.”
I’m afraid I’m not very helpful.
David Tracy:
Honestly, I need someone there. It’s not about knowing what to do, it’s about just having a friend there to make it more fun!
Sid Bridge:
In the immortal words of Adele…
We could’ve had it allllll…
Rollin’ in the Jeeepppp…
You took the piston right in your hand…
And you cracked… you cracked… you cracked it in the sleeve.
Al Lenz:
Many years ago I was putting a 455 Olds motor together for myself in the shop I worked at after hours. somewhere around 10:00 I had 7 pistons installed and properly torqued when I discovered I had an extra ring spacer!! I then proceeded to backtrack all the way back to the second piston before I found where the extra spacer belonged. Needless to say it was a long night spent talking bad about myself!!
Angry Bob:
I worked in a motorcycle shop for a while. Whenever a new mechanic would split engine cases for the first time, the shop manager would put an extra gear in the box of transmission parts. Then we’d all quietly laugh while he tried to figure out where it went.
One new guy (who asked me on his interview if the company drug tested), got the whole engine put back together and never said anything about the extra gear. He either actually found a place to put it, or just threw it out.
Your extra piston ring reminded me of that.
Finally, Mark had a Shitbox Showdown featuring a 1984 Dodge Rampage and a 1990 Honda Civic. TheDrunkenWrench perfectly explains how most Autopians buy cars:
The Civic is absolutely the better choice, so I picked the Rampage.
Have a great evening, everyone!
(Topshot graphic image: David Tracy)
Peak Autopian: “the Civic is absolutely the better choice, so I decided to build a WW2 Jeep from scratch.”