B
beergood
Guest
YExample, my Ranger. It has a crappy four cylinder BUT the 2.3L is about the toughest sonofab!tch you'd ever find in four cylinder form. Running it without oil is the only known way to kill it lol. Even at that you need to run it for a pretty good while without oil. :-D
I had that engine in my first car, a 1980 Mercury Capri. I think I had about 100,000 miles on it. I started to get a knock in the engine, then one day it got really bad and also lost all power. I threw a valve rocker and sheered a lobe off the cam. Roughly $200 (which is a huge hit for a 17 year old) and considerable effort later I fixed it. 6 months later the noise came back. I'm guessing I wasn't getting all the oil up in the valve cover that I should have.
Every now and again the second rocker would get thrown. I got exceptionally proficient at pulling over, removing the air cleaner, the valve cover, placing a 6 inch piece of pipe on the rocker, one precise hit with a mallet, pop it back in place, reassemble and be back on the road. All in less than 10 minutes. I kept all the necessary tools in a box.
I eventually suffered a cataclysm of electrical, ignition, rust, wheel problems that led to me having it towed out of my back yard. I almost wept, and I didn't own another car for a few years.
It was the ugliest car I have ever owned, and I have owned some ugly ones. Orange with an orange/brown interior. I wouldn't exactly call the engine bulletproof though. Now I drive an F150 with the 4.9l straight six. That thing has proven to be a workhorse (knock on wood).
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