Just add water.... To engine oil??

[timberlinetree]

Gotta love the youth these days.... My niece thought her transmission fluid was low and decided to add water. (Don't know if she thought this was a green car  ???) Now it won't start. I'm thinking she pored water into the oil fill and the water went down into the cylinders and now its locked up. I'm thinking about having them drain the oil and take the spark plugs out, letting it air dry, and then add oil and try turning it over. This reminds me of my friend's brother who decided to change the oil in his parent's Pontiac Fiero while they were on a vacation and filled it with about 20 quarts of oil (plus or minus - it was years ago!) Thought I heard them all but I guess not! Do any of you have any backyard mechanic stories to share?

[drobertson]

years ago my son added diesel to the lawn mower,  he was a lil fellow, no harm just a pain to drain at the time, I had to laugh, :D

[chet]

More years ago than I care to remember I worked at a service station. Had a customer ask me to add 5 quarts of my best motor oil to his car. Told him his car only held 5 quarts.  ???  "I know that he told me", "I drained it and replaced the filter before I came here." He lived several miles away.  :

[isawlogs]

 Had a BIL do an oil change in a snowblower, he tipped the blower over some to get the oil flowing out of the engine and left it for a while. After the oil stopped running he put the plug back in and tipped it the other way to have a better acess to the fill hole. Went on the filling it the the full mark put the plug back in and then set it back down.
  He pushed it outside and started it up and went to blowing snow, when I caught up to him he had a trail of oil following him through the yard, a few seals had blown out from the overfill.......
   

[goose63]

I had a grand son with a little dirt bike every time he ran out of gas he would grab my diesel can it took a while be foe he could tell the different smell of gas and diesel

[kczbest]

My Grandpa bought a brand new GM crate engine for a GMC bean truck and had the farm mechanic install it. When we started it up it was knocking like DanG @#$%^&*. We dropped the oil pan and the DanG engine did not have a rod or main bearing in it! say_what

[kczbest]

I know a guy (he has money but he isn't overly bright) who bought a brand new diesel truck and filled it up with gas the first time he filled it up. He made it a few miles down the road before it quit on him. I never have asked him how much that mistake cost him.

[submarinesailor]

The worst thing along these lines at I EVER heard of (was involved in), happened at a MAJOR Army installation in the northeast.  This installation had 2 Cat, 5.3 MW generators installed by a contractor.  But, startup and testing, were not part of the contractor's Scope of Work.  That belonged to the Corps of Engineers (COE).  Well several days passed for the time the COE accepted the physical installation until they got around to startup and testing.  When it came time for the testing, someone (we never found out who actually did it) reached over and pushed the start button.  No reading of the startup procedure.  And that my friends as the wrong that to do.  All over the machine(s) were big stickers stating:  " This equipment has been shipped without oil."  Well you can guess what happened.  And to make matters worse, after the first one seized up, they went over to the second one and did the same thing.  When all was said and done, the installation contractor was found to be NOT at fault and the installation wound up with 10.6 MW of boat anchors.  Cat told them to pact the warranty up their ........  I was involved because I had to perform all the natural gas consumption calculations.  Boy was it a mess for a long time.  And yes, I really wasn't happy because it was my tax dollars down the big rat hole in the sky.

Bruce

[Dave Shepard]

I heard of someone that I know filling up the engine on his car to the top of the valve cover. I think it took five gallons. :D

[red]

Customer had us put cheap oil in engine then start car then drain change cheap oil and filter.  Install Pennzoil 10-40 at every oil change with the idea the cheap oil cleaned/flushed the crankcase
We charged for two oil changes everytime.

[celliott]

Well shoot..... I gassed the bar oil in a saw at work the other day  :D

[sandhills]

Well shoot..... I gassed the bar oil in a saw at work the other day  :D

You're not alone on that one!  ;)  Rebuilt the engine in dad's 4010 JD tractor about 15 or so years ago, put the wrong size rod bearings in it, I'd taken the word of the mechanic I ordered the engine kit from and never plasti gauged them.  Funny how fast oil pressure drops once it gets warmed up  :-\.

[Dave Shepard]

Well shoot..... I gassed the bar oil in a saw at work the other day  :D

A friend of mine was working in NJ for a landscaper years ago. The guy bought a new chainsaw and took it back because it was using oil. Said his other saw was 25 years old, and had never used a drop! :D

[customsawyer]

Had a friend bring is saw over for me to sharpen since it wouldn't cut. Yes it did cut better when I turned the chain around.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Had a friend bring is saw over for me to sharpen since it wouldn't cut. Yes it did cut better when I turned the chain around.

:D :D :D

[justallan1]

I showed up at a friends house years ago to find him and another buddy sitting drinking beer with the guys car sitting there throttled about halfway up. Evidently between the two genius' they had found an engine, "That was way newer and bigger, that would just slide right in."
I don't know how long before I got there that they had drained the oil, then they drained the water (that was fun to watch) and we sat and drank until it quit them. Surprisingly, it did run for better than a box of beer.
Well, I was back over a few days later and their "new to them" engine wouldn't run for worth crap, they were just barely talking and I never did see that car on the road again.

Allan

[clww]

One of my sisters serviced the oil once in her Pinto (remember those?). Thinking it was low, she added oil until you couldn't see the rocker arms! :D :D :

[sawguy21]

Had a friend bring is saw over for me to sharpen since it wouldn't cut. Yes it did cut better when I turned the chain around.

I had the customer tell me he did that because he was cutting with the top of the bar.  I explained it was not necessary. :D I don't know how many times I have seen a piece of outdoor power equipment come in with water, diesel fuel, paint thinner, varsol, motor oil, you name it in the fuel tank.

[Magicman]

I do not remember the auto brand/model, but a story goes about a trunk leaking and partially filling with water.  No problem, just take a screwdriver & hammer and punch a hole in the trunk and let the water drain out.  No problem, except that the trunk floor was the gas tank roof.  The water drained out except not on the ground.   :-\

[Dave Shepard]

I've heard a lot of stories about people taking the slant six out of old cars to put a 340 or 360 in. They would do all sorts of thing to blow up that slant six, but it was never easy. I always think about the movie Duel when I think of slant sixes. :D

[Den Socling]

When I was in college, I worked at a garage at night. One of my jobs was oil changes. I put a car up on the rack one night and drained the oil. I put the plug back and had to go pump gas (a long time ago  :D). I came back, put the car down, started it up and put the rack up to check for leaks. Then I realized I didn't put oil in it. It seemed like minutes to get that rack back down. I felt terrible but don't think any damage was done - I still hope.

[ely]

here is one about slant six engines... I had a 70 something short wide I inheireted from my first marriage ,it used a little oil. dad and me was goingto town about 25 mile trip on way... I checked the oil and it was a quart down, I went in the shop and grabbed a quart of Castrol off the shelf. dumped it in. dad came out and off we went. on the way back from town the engine started knocking bad. I told dad it cant be low of oil because I just put a quart in...he ask where I got the quart from and then he got worried. well he had brought a tractor tube in from when he worked for the highway dept... it was a ruined tube but was full of tire sealer... he had drained the tire sealer into a bunch of quart oil bottles.
I had about 10 miles to get home and I just kept driving, I pulled into a store about 1.5 miles from my house and left it running... I put the diesel pump into the oil fill and got about 2 quarts in it. the engine smoothed out nicely,
I drove it on  home and drained the oil and changed the filter put real oil back in and we never had any problems with it after words...plus it stopped using oil.

[Roxie]

The Studebaker



 

Way back when I was about six years old, we had an old pink Studebaker.  Daddy was an auto mechanic, and really didn't want to come home and work on a car, so he was very creative in ways to keep them running.  The Studebaker had clothes pins on the vacuum line and a rock on the manifold, which was used to strike the carburetor when it stuck closed. 

One day my Mom had to drive us into Philadelphia for the Wills Eye Hospital because my brother had a lazy eye.  She used the parking garage nearest the hospital, and when we all went to get the car, she handed the keys to the attendant to bring our car down.  The guy came down without the car and told Mom that it wouldn't start.  She said, "Could you please tell me where it's parked?  I'm certain I can start it."  He walked us up ramps until we came to our car.  Mom turned to him and said, "Would you please hold the baby while I open the hood?"  Before he could answer, she'd shoved my baby sister into the guys arms and flung open the hood.  Reaching down to the manifold, she picked up the rock and raised it over her head.  The attendant was saying, "No lady!  Don't do that!"  She banged the carburetor, got in the car and it started up.  She hustled us into the car while the attendant closed the hood saying, "Well I never in my life seen anything like that." 

[r.man]

I know two stories pertaining to oil, the first was a friend who oiled the drive belt on a snowmobile because it was squealing. That is one of the instant results mistake. The other was a young woman who still lived at home but was done high school so she worked and had her own car. The car in question was leaking/burning oil so everyone was in the habit of checking it for her. One morning one of her brothers, her father and the fellow pumping her gas all put in at least one container of oil without reading the dipstick. Her complaint to someone else later in the day was that the little car was gutless. Speculation is that the pistons were hitting the oil in the downstroke on hills since they drained 4 litres out of it to make the level correct. Guess it wasn't low on oil after all.

[Dave Shepard]

here is one about slant six engines... I had a 70 something short wide I inheireted from my first marriage ,it used a little oil. dad and me was goingto town about 25 mile trip on way... I checked the oil and it was a quart down, I went in the shop and grabbed a quart of Castrol off the shelf. dumped it in. dad came out and off we went. on the way back from town the engine started knocking bad. I told dad it cant be low of oil because I just put a quart in...he ask where I got the quart from and then he got worried. well he had droughts a tractor tube in from when he worked for the highway dept... it was a ruined tube but was full of tire sealer... he had drained the tire sealer into a bunch of quart oil bottles.
I had about 10 miles to get home and I just kept driving, I pulled into a store about 1.5 miles from my house and left it running... I put the diesel pump into the oil fill and got about 2 quarts in it. the engine smoothed out nicely,
I drove it on  home and drained the oil and changed the filter put real oil back in and we never had any problems with it after words...plus it stopped using oil.

Well, that's one way to stop the leaks.  :D