Anyone can check oil. I meant people that don't understand anything beyond checking it, knowing how mechanical things work and why fluids and filters are so important.84_Chevy_K10 said:
CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.
Who understand basic concepts of maintenance
- Thread starter mountainexplorer
- Start date
gravdigr
1/2 ton status
My pop gave me a buick skylark about 8 years ago. Anytime I get a vehicle the first thing I do is give it a tuneup and oil change regardless of what the PO tells me. My pop told me he was keeping up with the oil changes on the vehicle. I drain the oil and it's sludge. I go to take of the filter and it collapses under te filter wrench it's so tight. I wind up punching through it with a screwdriver and turning it that way. During a phone call that left me speechless my pop told me in the last 3 years he never 'actually' changed the oil or filter. It used a quart every 2 weeks so it got 4 quarts of oil every 2 months which was 'like' an oil change
Then there is my father in law. He is a nut about oil, but he's cheap. All our work trucks get dollar general oil and $1.50 fram filters every 4 months or so.
Then there was the time he topped off my flatbed. I had it parked ready for the next day and before I went out he took the liberty of checking my oil (which I did the night before). SO I start the truck and let it warm up and smoke starts pouring out the exhaust and from under the hood. I pop the hood and oil is EVERYWHERE. It's dripping from the bottom of the hood and coating every surface as well as burning off the manifold. I open the air cleaner and the filter is saturated and oil is puddled in the air cleaner. He sees the smoke and comes out to find out what the problem is. I ask him if he messed with my truck that morning. He says yes and bitches at me for running it so low on oil, he had to put in 5 quarts that morning to get it up on the dipstick. I then had to inform him that a 351 only holds 5 quarts including the filter and I had topped it off that night. I had parked the truck in front of our building the previous night which is a hill. So my truck had 10 quarts of oil in it and blew it out of every orifice it had (and I believe it ruined the rear main seal that eventually killed the motor).
Then there is my father in law. He is a nut about oil, but he's cheap. All our work trucks get dollar general oil and $1.50 fram filters every 4 months or so.
Then there was the time he topped off my flatbed. I had it parked ready for the next day and before I went out he took the liberty of checking my oil (which I did the night before). SO I start the truck and let it warm up and smoke starts pouring out the exhaust and from under the hood. I pop the hood and oil is EVERYWHERE. It's dripping from the bottom of the hood and coating every surface as well as burning off the manifold. I open the air cleaner and the filter is saturated and oil is puddled in the air cleaner. He sees the smoke and comes out to find out what the problem is. I ask him if he messed with my truck that morning. He says yes and bitches at me for running it so low on oil, he had to put in 5 quarts that morning to get it up on the dipstick. I then had to inform him that a 351 only holds 5 quarts including the filter and I had topped it off that night. I had parked the truck in front of our building the previous night which is a hill. So my truck had 10 quarts of oil in it and blew it out of every orifice it had (and I believe it ruined the rear main seal that eventually killed the motor).
gravdigr said:My pop gave me a buick skylark about 8 years ago. Anytime I get a vehicle the first thing I do is give it a tuneup and oil change regardless of what the PO tells me. My pop told me he was keeping up with the oil changes on the vehicle. I drain the oil and it's sludge. I go to take of the filter and it collapses under te filter wrench it's so tight. I wind up punching through it with a screwdriver and turning it that way. During a phone call that left me speechless my pop told me in the last 3 years he never 'actually' changed the oil or filter. It used a quart every 2 weeks so it got 4 quarts of oil every 2 months which was 'like' an oil change
Then there is my father in law. He is a nut about oil, but he's cheap. All our work trucks get dollar general oil and $1.50 fram filters every 4 months or so.
Then there was the time he topped off my flatbed. I had it parked ready for the next day and before I went out he took the liberty of checking my oil (which I did the night before). SO I start the truck and let it warm up and smoke starts pouring out the exhaust and from under the hood. I pop the hood and oil is EVERYWHERE. It's dripping from the bottom of the hood and coating every surface as well as burning off the manifold. I open the air cleaner and the filter is saturated and oil is puddled in the air cleaner. He sees the smoke and comes out to find out what the problem is. I ask him if he messed with my truck that morning. He says yes and bitches at me for running it so low on oil, he had to put in 5 quarts that morning to get it up on the dipstick. I then had to inform him that a 351 only holds 5 quarts including the filter and I had topped it off that night. I had parked the truck in front of our building the previous night which is a hill. So my truck had 10 quarts of oil in it and blew it out of every orifice it had (and I believe it ruined the rear main seal that eventually killed the motor).
what year was the skylark? i know its off topic but i love buicks.
Change Oil every 3k, and keep an eye on trany color, and of course keep an eye on the tcase, because it leaks arround the yoke(change the seal like 3 times still leaks) But I keep putting it off till i can afford a SYE kit. Just changed fluid in my front and rear diffs, and did out seals in the front, but will be ditching those axles in a few weeks.
mightywhitey_k5
Registered Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2004
- Posts
- 74
- Reaction score
- 0
redicklis
I see this sort of thing at work all the time. Heavy truck transmissions that were run very low on oil, or even dry. Talk about carnage - with all that power and inertia, there's usually not much left of whatever geat the tranny was in when it finally seized, just a slick steel wheel. Cleaning all the sludge and shrapnel out of a bombed-out transmission sucks... and stinks. Literally. Burnt gear oil really smells bad...
speaking of bad smells...
Yeah,burnt gear oil does smell bad--almost as bad as hair burning!--and another thing that smells bad is a motor that was overheated to the point of near meltdown,nothing like the smell of burnt motor oil,prestone, and gaskets...but the worst thing ever is a skunk,stuck in the v-belts and pulleys of a ford torino,burnt beyond recognition almost--my friend and I had the unpleasant chore of removing its corpse from the front of the engine,and putting new belts on,so the owner could continue on her way to work-
Seems the skunk thought the fan shroud was a nice warm place too sleep the night before--she got about a mile from home,and said it sounded like a lawnmower hitting a rock,then all the idiot lights came on--she kept driving until she reached the repair shop 3 miles away,by then the skunk was on fire--we put it out with a garden hose,lucky the whole car didnt go up....about 3 weeks later,another car came in with a similar problem--but this time it was a cat entangled in the belts and pulleys--nothing worse than pulling a dead cat out of the belts and pulleys,with its gold eyes wide open staring you in the face....
Yeah,burnt gear oil does smell bad--almost as bad as hair burning!--and another thing that smells bad is a motor that was overheated to the point of near meltdown,nothing like the smell of burnt motor oil,prestone, and gaskets...but the worst thing ever is a skunk,stuck in the v-belts and pulleys of a ford torino,burnt beyond recognition almost--my friend and I had the unpleasant chore of removing its corpse from the front of the engine,and putting new belts on,so the owner could continue on her way to work-
Seems the skunk thought the fan shroud was a nice warm place too sleep the night before--she got about a mile from home,and said it sounded like a lawnmower hitting a rock,then all the idiot lights came on--she kept driving until she reached the repair shop 3 miles away,by then the skunk was on fire--we put it out with a garden hose,lucky the whole car didnt go up....about 3 weeks later,another car came in with a similar problem--but this time it was a cat entangled in the belts and pulleys--nothing worse than pulling a dead cat out of the belts and pulleys,with its gold eyes wide open staring you in the face....
gravdigr
1/2 ton status
Jonny-K5 said:
It was a 1981 POS. 1 spark plug was never changed before I got it because you had to disconnect an engine mount and jack up the back of the motor.
I hated that car. Eventually some kid bought it off me. The electric fan switch went bad and I wasn't putting any more money into it so I just put in a manual switch. I told the kid who bought it about the fan and not to forget the fan switch when he would run the car until he could get it switched. He forgot to turn on the fan when he left and wound up cooking the motor doing 70MPH on the higway going back to jersey. I'm suprised he didn't smell it. Called me and wanted his money back lol
