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Comparing Older Domestic Engines

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  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    Before my time but Packard and Hudson made some tough flatheads.

    I helped a guy pull a Packard 8 cyl head off an engine one time and almost broke my back!
  • hpmctorquehpmctorque Member Posts: 4,600
    I you opinion, how did the independent's straight eights compare with the Pontiac, Oldsmobile and OHV Buick straight eights? Criteria would be power, fuel economy,reliability, cost of maintenance, smoothness and driving characteristics?
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 25,684
    edited September 2010
    My dad was a Mopar man. He always said that Ford's nickle and dimed you to death and if you held a GM more than a few years it would catch up with the Ford maintenance cost due to some kind of major failure. I don't know though, I remember as a kid he had some good, and some not very good Mopars.

    The way I've often heard it was that a Mopar would probably start giving you troubles sooner than a Ford or GM car, and would usually start rusting sooner, leaking sooner, leave you stranded over some minor electrical problem have minor things break off, etc, but then after a few years, the GM or Ford would start racking up major repairs and would eventually catch up.

    But then, it's always interesting to go to these classic car events at Carlisle PA, and at the Ford show, everybody talks about how much better Fords are, at the GM show, everybody loves their GM, and then two weeks later at the Mopar show, it's like Mopar can do no wrong. I've learned, for the most part, to keep my mouth shut, and not mention to the Mopar crowd that I put a GM car in the show, and vice versa. I did get outed in 2009 though, when a guy in one of my Mopar clubs saw me and my Catalina at the GM show!
  • armesarmes Member Posts: 32
    edited September 2010
    Chrysler had a lot of problems with rusty cooling systems in the 50's, 60's and some of the 70's. Chrysler used to " cure " their castings outside in the weather. The hidden/unknown advantage of this was that the rust that developed in the casting would seal little porosity/sand pinhole leaks and imperfections inside and outside the casting. This would help reduce their scrap and product warranty problems. Everyone should know that it is next to impossible to stop rust in cast iron once it has started. Chryslers were prone to overheating and cooling system failures due to this rust growing and taking over the cooling systems.
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 25,684
    Chrysler also used a lot of nickle in their blocks to make them stronger without having to make them heavier (Oldsmobile did this as well, and others as well, no doubt). Unfortunately, the nickle made them more prone to rusting if you went too long between coolant changes, or ran straight water through the system.

    Now that I think about it, I've had three Mopar 318's, a '68 Dart, '79 Newport, and '89 Gran Fury, and the water pump went out on every single one. Well, the Dart might've been a 273....I never did find out the truth about that (originally a 273 car, but the seller told me it had a rebuilt 318). My two '79 New Yorkers, which have 360's, haven't had any issues...yet! I have heard that the 360 can have cooling problems though, because the water jackets between the cylinders are too narrow. Supposedly in copcars, they were often done by 80-90,000 miles. Hopefully the civvy models last longer! I'm currently at 95,000 miles on one, and around 65,000 on the other
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    edited September 2010
    Oh c'mon, everyone knows that GM ruled the world in the 1950s and early 60s and Mopar ruled in the mid to late 1960s. Without the Mustang, would anyone even care about Ford products of that era? What's left? The 55-57 T-Birds, and a few NASCAR knock-offs. Not much to say for Ford really.

    In the prestige market, it was GM all the way up to the Dismal 80s and the Great Undoing. Neither Ford nor Mopar put up credible challenges in the luxury market IMO.
  • hpmctorquehpmctorque Member Posts: 4,600
    edited September 2010
    My parents owned 5 Mopars ('51and '56 Plymouths, '57 Chrysler New Yorker, '60 Valiant and '69 Dodge Dart with the Slant 6) with ~65,000-110,000 miles on them before they were traded. None overheated, ever. I think they replaced a couple of water pumps, but never a radiator. Maybe these were the exception, but all were running well, though worn, when they were traded.
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 25,684
    Now that I think about it, I replaced the water pump on my '69 Dart, which had a slant six, as well. I think the worst was my '89 Gran Fury. I had to replace the radiator and a couple freeze plugs in 2000, and I think it was 2003 that the water pump finally went south.

    And looking back, I was wrong about my '68 Dart's water pump. It was actually the starter I was thinking of, as that was one thing in common that the Dart, Newport, and Gran Fury all needed replacing on. The Dart had a seam that kept blowing though, where the top of the radiator was soldered to the tank. A friend of mine tried to fix it twice, but it kept leaking. Had the repair shop fix it, but it came back again after a few months. Finally, I took it out, took it to a radiator specialist, they fixed it, and I never had another problem.

    I was really disappointed in that Gran Fury, considering it was the youngest Mopar I'd ever had up to that point. I thought going from a 19 year old Newport with over 250,000 miles, to a 9 year old Gran Fury with only 73,000 miles, would give me a big boost in reliability, but in retrospect, I should've held onto that Newport!
  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    Water pump replacements used to be very common in ALL cars. If you got 40,000 miles out of your water pump that was about par.

    Same thing with alternators and starters. We replaced these constantly and thought nothing of it.

    Now, when something fails on a car with 120,000 miles it's a MAJOR problem and the people run to the "problems" boards and whine about how they have been wronged and how it must have been a "defective design"!

    Epecially if it's a Honda.
  • oldcemoldcem Member Posts: 309
    I actually own a 1948 Chevy with its original 216 engine. The old "Stovebolt" does use dippers on its con rods for low speed lubrication. However at higher RPM, it uses a set of 6 nozzles to spray oil at the dippers, and, create an oil mist to lube the other engine internals. Mine is rebuilt, and, runs 15 PSI oil pressure at speed. The car retains its stock 4:11 rear end, so, about 65 MPH is about its top comfortable cruising speed. While its only rated at 90 HP, it makes almost 200 Ft-Lbs of torque, and, moves my big 2 door Town Sedan reasonably well.

    Regards:
    OldCEM
    1948 Chevy Fleetmaster 2 Dr. Town Sedan
  • euphoniumeuphonium Member Posts: 3,425
    Agree with you. My '39 Master DeLuxe had the identical mechanicals and 60 mph was it's best and smoothest speed. I used to have an oil soaked "blanket" with two holes that fit over the tappets. That thing was effective as long as the intakes were adjusted to 6 thousandths & exhaust 13. We drove it from 1950 to 1958 lasting from high school through college & the Army. :)
  • oldcemoldcem Member Posts: 309
    Brings back memories - In the early 60's, while I was in High School, I was running around in a 1937 Dodge Business Coupe with a stock flathead in it. She made about 60 - 70 HP I think. As I remember, the engine only had 3 main bearings, and, would torque knock if lugged in 3rd gear. She could only make 60 with a tailwind.

    Regards:
    OldCEM
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Pre-war engines were built for torque and smoothness, certainly not for revs---that was a sure way to wear them out quickly. Not until you got those short-stroke V8s could you start to wind up domestic engines. This is one reason you see overdrives on a lot of the older cars with flatheads.

    Of course, back in the day, people were expected to overhaul their engines periodically, even at 40K to 60K miles.
  • armesarmes Member Posts: 32
    The manual for my 1917 Olds Flat Head V-8 even says the oil should be changed once every week!
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    I guess people had time for things like that, back in 1917.

    Of course, engine technology wasn't too advanced back then, so the piston rings probably let a lot of compression leakage into the crankcase---that makes oil very contaminated quite quickly.
  • hpmctorquehpmctorque Member Posts: 4,600
    Very true. Was the Ford flathead V8 an exception, in a way, in that couldn't it wind up pretty well, especially when modified, as many of them were?
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    edited October 2010
    Well that engine is decades ahead in development from the one we were talking about, so yeah, as time went on, the old flatheads got to spin a bit faster, especially as people learned how to get them to breathe better with special intakes and cams and multiple carbs.
  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    Some people talk like the 216 engines were junk but they were really decent engines that would last a long time.

    They didn't like high RPMS or to be hot rodded. At the slightest hint of a rod knock someone who knew what they were doing would need to pull the pan and adjust and shim the bearings.

    Of course, all of the old guys who knew how to do this are long retired or dead by now.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    You just had to be reasonable about a 216, and avoid higher revs, heavy loads and long pulls up hills. These engines were made for 1930s roads, not 1970s roads.
  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    edited October 2010
    My first car was a 1952 Chevy. It needed a fuel pump and I was able to buy it for 35.00.

    I remember in the glove box there was a receipt from 1962 from the local chevy Dealer. " Adjust and shim engine bearings...30.00!

    As a youngster, I accidently drove it straight into the Watts Riots not knowing what was happening. A cop yelled at me to get the hell out of there and I did!

    I remember driving down the Harbor Freeway at 75 MPH which the Chevy did with ease and no ill effects afterwards.

    San Pedro never looked so good!
  • euphoniumeuphonium Member Posts: 3,425
    Our 2nd Chevy was a '53 Bel Air Sedan with 7,200 miles in April 1955 for $1500. It was a stick with the 235.5 engine. Thus, I think '52 was the last year for the 216.5.
    The '53 was geared better for highway use & regretted selling it in Honolulu, however, the same car was worth $500 less in SF March '58. Those were the years, two married college grads with jobs and a couple of cars - no kids. How else can I piss you off? ;)
  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    edited October 2010
    If it was a 1953 with a stick, it still used the babbett bearings. The ones with Powerglide had inserts and full pressure lubrication. By 1954 all of them had inserts. Of course those were much better engines but the 216's weren't as bad as some people would have you believe.

    Funny, the stick 235's had mechanical lifters and the Powerglides had hydraulic until 1956 when they all had hydraulic lifters.

    Any more Chevy trivia I can bore you with?
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    you could tell the class why replacing a clutch in those cars was a form of torture.
  • euphoniumeuphonium Member Posts: 3,425
    Re: our 53.....Stewart Warner made a tachometer that exactly replaced the clock in the dash. It was so tight, you'd think it was factory.
  • fintailfintail Member Posts: 57,162
    Speaking of Stewart-Warner, the original owner of my fintail drilled a hole in the dash and installed a S-W ammeter. It looks pretty decent, period correct and doesn't clash too much.
  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    " you could tell the class why replacing a clutch in those cars was a form of torture"

    Yes, I can.

    Prior to 1955, Chevys didn't have an open driveshaft. They had a torque tube and replacing a clutch was a B***H!

    I once helped a buddy do one on the ground, without a hoist.

    And, inside that torque tube was a seal that prevented the transmission oil and the differential oil from combining.

    If the seal went bad and the car was parked on a hill the oil from the transmission would flow through the tube into the differential and overfill it thus blowing the axle seals.

    They made a "kit" that was referred to as an "Okie" kit where you would pound a bushing as I recall into the end of the tube to cure the problem.

    The kit usually worked and it saved a lot of time and trouble.

    I seem to recall that Buicks kept the torque tubes even longer than chevy did?
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    I used to loosen the entire back axle and differential and hook a come-a-long to it and pull it backwards in order to loosen up the torque tube.

    The 4-speed trucks didn't have this.
  • hpmctorquehpmctorque Member Posts: 4,600
    edited November 2010
    The lastest issue of Hemmings Classic Car magazine has a detailed article about the Pontiac I-8 engine. This was of interest to me because my dad owned a '47, a '49 and a '52, the latter two with Hydramatic. After reading about the engineering and features that were incorporated into this engine, to make it rugged, reliable and smooth, I have the impression that Pontiac gave buyers their money's worth when they upgraded from the I-6 to the I-8. It also seemed to be a good value compared with the Chevy Stovebolt 6, although the latter had overhead valves, whereas the Pontiac engines were flatheads.

    This issue of Classic Car also featured an article on the AMC V8, which was introduced in some '56 Hudson and Nash models. This engine displaced 250 c.i., compared with 265 in the '55 Chevy. Yet, for all the fame of the Chevy small block, the smaller AMC engine pumped out 190 horsepower, compared with 162 for the 2-barrel Chevy, and 180 for the 4-barrel, which also had duel exhausts.

    An interesting side note was that AMC had a formal agreement with Studebaker-Packard to buy Packard engines for the large Nashes and Hudsons. In fact, AMC used Packard engines in the '54, '55 and '56 Nash Ambassador and Hudson Hornet. In return, AMC and Studebaker-Packard had a gentleman's agreement that called for S-P to buy certain body stampings from AMC. The understanding was that the dollar amount of the stampings was to approximately equal the value of the engines. This arrangement made sense for both companies, since S-P had excess engine capacity, while AMC had excess stamping capacity, and both companies stood to benefit from the unit cost savings this exchange would have yielded. What happened was that AMC lived up to its contract, but S-P ignored that gentleman's agreement. According to this article, S-P president, James Nance, thought that AMC wouldn't survive, and that S-P would be able to buy AMC cheap. This infuriated George Romney, AMC's CEO at the time, and he reacted by having AMC develop its own V8. Interesting, eh?
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    edited November 2010
    Nance later went on to become a VP for Edsel, to continue his string of successes. :P

    The Chevy small block's incredible success wasn't predicated strictly on HP, but rather lighter weight, ability to rev, lower deck height, and build-ability. These attributes are a great advantage for longevity of design. There were plenty of sturdy V8 engines in the 50s, but they were porkers. The Chevy 265 shoehorned very nicely into the 1955 Corvette and saved the model no doubt. No way you were going to get an AMC V8 into anything else unless it looked like a small house or didn't have a hood. Well of course I exaggerate but you know, a matter of inches, and weight, is important in car design.
  • hpmctorquehpmctorque Member Posts: 4,600
    edited November 2010
    I didn't know about the seuqel to Nance's illustrious automotive career. From the Classic Car article, Nance and Romney disliked each other intensely. The writer of the article has a bias for Romney.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Well I'll give Nance one pass...it was Romney who accused Nance, and forever black-marked him, for trashing the Packard archives. This is now shown to have been untrue...it was Curtis Wright negligence whilst administering Studebaker that caused so much Packard material to be throw away.

    Maybe Romney was PO'd at Nance for reneging on that parts deal.
  • hpmctorquehpmctorque Member Posts: 4,600
    We'll probably never know the truth, for certain, about which of these two men was more responsible for AMC and S-P not working more cooperateively. Maybe it was just bad chemistry. Or, maybe, as the Classic Car article suggests, Nance didn't behave honorably.

    Since neither AMC nor S-P survived, maybe a merger would have given the combined company a fighting chance at survival. Maybe not. Both companies were probably too weak by, say, 1956, to compete with the Big Three and, later, the Japanese. Then there was the issue of model overlap. That might have been resolvable with the right leadership, but it would have been difficult. Anyway, it's too bad that we no longer have the opportunity to buy Packards, Sudebakers, Nashes and Hudsons, or even Croselys, for that matter. For whatever reason I don't feel quite the same about Kaisers, but, as long as we're dreaming, heck, why not Kaisers and even Frazers too. The Kaiser Darrin was a neat car in its day.
  • keystonecarfankeystonecarfan Member Posts: 181
    After working at Ford, Nance went to the banking sector, and apparently did quite well. Perhaps he finally found his niche. Packard wanted him in the first place because he had turned around Hotpoint (the apppliance maker). The Packard board of directors, realizing that the company desperately needed new blood at the top, recruited him for the job.

    Regarding the Chevy V-8's success - in addition to the factors you mentioned, I've read that Chevy cleverly made sure that plenty of after-market parts were available for those who wanted more performance from their smallblocks. Ford did the same thing with the 5.0 and 4.6 V-8s from the 1980s forward - hence, their popularity with performance buffs today.
  • keystonecarfankeystonecarfan Member Posts: 181
    edited November 2010
    Romney claimed that Nance called him "George Mason's errand boy," so there must have been bad blood between them even before Mason's unexpected death in 1954.

    I doubt that a merger between AMC and Studebaker-Packard would have saved either company in the long run. Studebaker dragged down Packard. It probably would have dragged down AMC, too.

    It's also worth noting that the visions that Nance and Romney had for their respective companies were so different that I doubt the men could have worked together. Nance wanted Studebaker-Packard to compete directly with the Big Three. He was planning a full-line of revamped 1957 Studebakers, Clippers and Packards to do just that until the insurance companies pulled the rug out from under him by denying the necessary financing.

    Even if Studebaker-Packard had gotten the financing, the company probably would not have succeeded in the long run. Chrysler had trouble keeping up with Ford and GM by the late 1950s. I doubt that Studebaker-Packard would have had better luck, especially given that the clays of the planned 1957 models I've seen really weren't anything special. Not many people were going to swap their Oldsmobiles and Buicks for Nance's planned 1957 and later Clippers.

    Romney was ready to bet the farm on the compact Rambler by 1956, which was considered quite a gamble by conventional standards. With sales of the "regular" Nash and Hudson models dwindling away after 1954, he had no real choice, but most auto executives would have tried to save those models by coming out with all-new models, or at least heavily facelifted ones, for 1958.

    Nance would never have supported placing all of the company's bets on the Rambler - which turned out to be the correct one, buying AMC several more years of life. Nor would he have supported bringing back the 1955 Rambler as the 1958 Rambler American, another unorthodox move that was surprisingly successful for AMC.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Yes, the aftermarket was critical to the Chevy small block's success, as was Chevy's often-secretive support for racing. It didn't hurt either to have their engines in the iconic Corvette, or their other small blocks and big blocks featured in rock n' roll lyrics.

    Ford engines were pretty much unimpressive in the 1950s. The "Blower Birds" had no more effect on the general public than the blown Studebakers.

    Without aftermarket, without street racing, without professional competitive successes, there was no way to beat GM in the "image" game when it came to engines. Finally Chrysler managed it, in the late 60s, once they had all the other prerequisites in order. Chrysler had to build the support network that GM had.

    Engines in the 50s and 60s were about raw power. There was no demand for, nor need for, "sophistication". The most successful engines were brutes. Iron blocks, pushrods, and pistons the size of your head.
  • hpmctorquehpmctorque Member Posts: 4,600
    What you said regarding the chances of a merger succeeding is very realistic.
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