i was watching the andy griffith show the other night. barney bought an old ford from this old lady[ granma walton]. the car broke down and gomer said they had put saw dust in the differential. i have heard of this before. is there any truth to it?
Used car lots in the old days. In the diff. and in the manual trans. Make it quiet long enough to sell. 90 weight in the engine to up the oil pressure and to stop the smoking.
One of those things you always heard about back in the day. Usually attributed to a gypo used car lot or someone who had gotten rid of a rig with a noisy rear end.
There was a thread not too long ago with a bunch of these types of temporary quick fixes to sell cars, saw dust was mentioned and also banana peels.
I have seen it first hand. A friend bought a blazer years ago, one day we pulled the diff covers and found the front diff was full of grease and a ton of saw dust, I about shit. Heard but had never seen It before. Nevertheless the axles was trashed.
Back in the late forties you could buy heavy duty grease to fill that trans. or rear that was noisy. The grease was mixed with saw dust. We bought it at Pep Boys.
I have seen the sawdust deal ,but i have got one even better.My late Grandfather was a used car dealer for over thirty years ,and i went to many dealer auctions with him as a kid .He used to get to the auction early and pick the cars out that he wanted.He would then raise the hood and switch two plug wires on the dist cap and sometimes stick the choke shut a bit .When they would bring the car through the auction it would be missing like Hell /loading up (obviously) and no other dealer would bid on it .My Grandpa would get it at a smoking price and then switch the plug wires back ,open the choke and drive it to his lot.Sad but very true story ...
My son bought a volvo 164 with a pair of jeans in the diff stufed in the spidergears as a limited slip?????
seen it first hand my dads shop was in the same building as Pedroli motors i would do work for him also he had a bucket of good uced spark plugs for tune ups i have put saw dust and 600 weight oil in rear ends ( 600 was the oil for a ford transmitions) when it was cold they were a little stiff when you tried to move it i put oatmeal in radiators mixed 90 and 30 motor oil to stop smoke i also put flake graphite in rearends John Pedroli had a lot of used cars he told people it was a running piece of junk but it was cheep and would go down the road. mostly used for short run town cars he sold lots of them
We had a bunch of parts come through the shop in trade. One of them was a Muncie M-20 4 speed. The guy who brought it in said he got it at a swap meet for a deal but never got around to using it because it was apparently stuck between gears. I ended up taking it home for one of my projects. When I pulled the side cover off I found it packed full of sawdust and the gears a rusted and fused mess. You could tell that it had gotten really hot until the gears were probably glowing when it locked up. We figured it was a way to get a clapped out muscle car off the used car lot back in the day.
We call that sabotaging. Still happens. Great way to get your teeth smashed out or your tires slashed if you get caught.
I've seen ground pepper used as an expedient (and effective) stop leak on the road. Probably not the first choice, but a lot better than having the coolant running out....
My Great grandpa would take dried horse apples and break them up into a leaking tractor radiator to stop leaks.
I've seen the bananas go into the diff , pushed (very messy) into the drain hole. After about 20 went in , it was real quiet. Drove it to a yard to trade in on another Piece of crap. Had Magilla Gorilla following us all the way. I've used pepper in the radiator to stop a weep in an aluminium radiator while on a bush trip, but had to trash the radiator when we got back (where all aluminium radiators should be)
I was witness to this. My Buddy Jerry, back in HS, (like '64 or so), had a '55 6-banger Savoy that he knocked a rod out of earlier in the past week. He just crawled under it and installed a shoe "tongue" leather insert in her and it lasted long enough that he took his G/F out that Sat. night on a date! Right, sawdust in stick shifts and rearends. And I've done the "waterglass" in the rad. to stop a cracked head cold for like 12 to 18 months if DONE RIGHT.. pdq67
Ground pepper and an egg white, the poor mans radiator stop leak. Had to do that on my own p.o.s. car a couple of times back in the day.Works good until you turn the motor up in a race, then boy does it let go! lol
Also egg keep was used for leaky radiators years ago. SAWDUST was a common thing during WWII when rationing was at premium, a differential noise was quieted down a lot so seller could make the deal & vanish,----Lots of tricks back then, when no parts were to be had!!!-------Don
my grandfathers old truck was used in that movie, cant remember what it was at the moment. i have used egg white in a radiator, i had heard it worked very well for a temp fix. i didnt have to good of luck with it, everyday when i got home from work there was a nice pudle in the gutter of water with boiled egg white
Man I haven't thought about this in a loooong time. The pepper helps plug the hole and the egg white forms a glaze over it, if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, at 6 grand the pump is pushing a lot of coolant and that little plug comes out in a rather messy way. Scared the shit out of me, 'cause I thought I blew the motor.
Hell... even in the 80's car lots were using sawdust in diffs and transmissions. I worked for one as a mechanics helper... I flat out refused to do it.... didnt care if they fired me or not...
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