How long do 40s-50s era engines last?

I can say for a fact that some engines from the 40s and 50s made it to 2010. How long after that I'm not sure.

 

Hmmmm. I wonder if an older engine used modern metallurgy in the rings and bearings if it would last as long as a modern engine.

 

Although I do agree that the fuel wash had something to do with it and still would if we had carbs on new cars. there have been so many advances in manufacturing technology it is mind boggling. I have just studied the tip of the Ice burg. but I will try to find so info to post here about it.

In a lot of cases many new engine blocks cant be machined due to this surface of the wall. and must be replaced or in some cases resleaved.

Also roller valve trains are a big contributor to increased life!

 

you old farts seem to have forgotten and young guys dont realize there was a lot of sludge because they used non detergent oil back in the days of these engines, and if u took it to be seviced and they changed the oil cold it added to the sludge problem

 

Agreed, I'd bet that not a lot of the under 30 brigade have pulled a valve cover and had to spend a half hour a side digging the sludge and crud out to find the valve springs and rocker arms and the original job was to replace the valve cover gaskets because they were leaking what oil that made it to the top.

Preventive maintenance and driving habits probably had and still have as much to do with longevity of engines or the lack there of than any other thing.
My dad was a total stickler for changing the oil and doing the necessary scheduled maintenance on time and by the designated mileage. He usually got a lot more miles out of an engine than his cronies did with similar engines. That was primarily driving Fords (flathead) Buicks (nailhead) and Oldsmobiles. The only engine he ever had rebuilt that I know of was the 57 Olds J-2 in his 57 88 four door hardtop that had who knows how many miles and was the only car he ever owned that he never ran to top end.

I don't think it was the engines that killed so many GM cars as it was the wood structure in the bodies up through 1935 and maybe 36. We all have checked out more than one early 30's GM car with straight sheet metal that was just barely hanging together because of the rotted wood that it had been nailed to.

We all know someone who can destroy any engine from any manufacture or builder in a short period of time while we also know others who can get more miles out of an engine than anyone thought possible.

 

my experience with 235 chev 6 was about 10K to a rering, proabbly due to poor air cleaners or me pounding the pee out of it and even later i did a lot of rerings on them some for little old ladies but they got proabbly 80K on them
but the Fords were a tough engine and lasted a long time compared to the chevys
JMHO

 

Straight eight in my 42 Hudson was showing only 47K miles but when I opened it up, but it wasn't wear that was the culprit cylinders and babbits were smoooth. The water passages were totally clogged up from rust residue. Must have had a hell of an overheating problem so it was parked. Screw drive popped the residue 'cakes' from around the cylinder passages and opened the holes up in the head to block passages. Both block and head were dipped to be sure all passages are clear and will be running a good rust prohibiter when back together.

 

I have a 235 Chevy with 105,000 miles and still running strong. The head has never even been off of it.

 

When I was a kid back in the 50's, any car that had over 50,000 miles on it was considered over the hill. Lots of things contributed to that. 90% of the county roads were gravel and the dust would get so thick it would choke you. A lot of that got sucked into the oil via the filler cap, which had a simple screen to "filter" the air. Also, most of the oil filters systems were not full flow, so they did not do the best job.

That said, my Uncle had a Hudson 6 that he put 100,000 miles on during the War. On teardown, it had .002" cylinder wear. No one would believe him.

So I'd have to say ALL the stories you have heard are probably true. At least the vast majority of them.

Bill

 

I agree with B Blue about the dust and not just in the country, most small towns had gravel side streets. I can remember the city oiling the street with used waste oil to keep the dust down. Those cars were using oil before they got ring and a valve job. Fill it with gas and check the oil was standard practice, sold lots of oil.

 

same for Quaker State.

 

Back in the day in Michigan it was the body's of the cars that went first. The salt did the job. Plymouth's would loose the floors. If you got 6 years from your cars you were lucky.

 

Interesting stuff. I remember when my Dad bought a 93 Chrysler minivan with a 3.3. One of the studs that held up the rocker arm shaft broke so he needed to take off the head. I looked down the bore of the engine and the sucker looked like it had zero wear. All the cross-hatching was still there and there was zero lip. This motor had 180,000 miles on it at the time.

 

The combination of non detergent oil, engines running too cool for their own good, road draft tubes, ring technology, bypass oil filters, and lax oil change intervals added up to lots of black pudding in a lot of engines. I haven't seen anyone mention the rear gear ratio as it relates to engine life; most of today's engines with overdrive transmissions turn less in 200,000 miles of use than a Chevy/Ford/Dodge with a three speed and 4.11:1 gears did in 100,000 miles.

 

How about this one;

Wisconsin man soon to put millionth mile on his 1991 Chevy Silverado
Friday, February 1, 2008

Associated Press
MEDFORD, Wis.—Frank Oresnik is on the verge of making history driving his old standby — the pickup truck he says is about to pass the 1 million mile mark.
Oresnik took the 1991 Chevrolet Silverado to the Oil Ex-Change Quick Lube in Medford yesterday for what he expects will be its last oil change and tuneup before hitting the magic number.
He said the truck is 1,200 miles from a million, and once he hits the mark he will retire the vehicle.
"I feel almost like the longtime NFL player as he goes into his last training camp knowing this is the end," Oresnik said.
He credits proper maintenance and a good measure of luck for allowing the truck to rack up so many miles. He said he's had more than 300 oil changes and tuneups at the Medford business, going in every 3,000 miles.
The truck has had four radiators, three gas tanks, five transmissions and six water pumps, but the engine has never been overhauled, Oresnik said. He bought the Silverado in June 1996 after the original owner put 41,000 miles on it. Oresnik uses the vehicle to deliver seafood in three states, putting on about 85,000 miles a year.

 

i,ve had fords,chevy,s and mopars some from the 80,s and up go over 3000,000 miles and some less and 50,s ford and chevy go over 150 ,000 miles if you due the right mant. and a little bit of luck you will get over a 1000,000 miles out of most 50,s car,s any make

 

speaking from experience in the 1930s and 1940s we considered that you had to do a valve job in 12,000-15,000 miles and complete overhaul at 25-30,000 miles.

What we forget is that we didn't drive the miles that we do now. things were closer to home, and you didn't take long trips without figuring that the car would crap out somewhere. And all driving was at 45 or less in the thirties, unless you had a good car. Our new 36 Ford would do 77 miles an hour, but that was down hill on the mountain grades east of San Diego. LOL But things were cheaper , dollar wise, to have repaired then, although the dollars were scarer to get.

traderjack

 

the y block in my lady's 54 merc runs like a perpetual motion machine. It has exchanged hands 4 times in our group. It used to get driven on 600 mile round trips every other weekend withthe first owner

 

Another factor is, some cars keep getting fixed because people want to fix them. I see weird things surviving in remarkable numbers, that we all thought weren't going to make it when they were merely second-hand, like Citroën DSs. I can only conclude that people grow fond of certain cars for whatever reason - in the case of the DS a sort of genteel weirdness - which prompts them to keep fixing them.

Conversely some cars known when new for rugged reliability when new, but which had no other redeeming features, like the rear-drive Mazda 323 (GLC in North America) have pretty much disappeared entirely.

What happens is that, in the case of some cars, a community takes over correcting the defects of the original design. This happens when the cars are relatively young, but carries on accumulating learning and problem-solving as the cars age. A friend of mine who is into Land Rovers remarked that the reputation of Land Rover's local agencies for atrocious service was actually a blessing in disguise, as it stimulated this process of people learning how to fix what's wrong and then sharing the knowledge.

The problem with today's cars is that, while great efforts have been made to allow cars to run up considerable mileages with virtually no maintenance, the designs actively suppress tinkering, learning, and disseminating.

Yes, there is the tuner thing - but increasingly it's a case of, how many computer programmers does it take to change a light bulb? Can't be done, it's a hardware problem. Hardware is increasingly considered beyond the ken of mere mortals.

 

I had an old machinist tell me the secret to a long living dipper 216 was to warm it up before you revved it. He had one with over 200,000 on it and he drove the stink out of that old AD.