Ian K

Have to scrap my old car (1993 Taurus, nothing special, don't want to spend $1,200 plus about 30 hours of my time to fix it).

It runs, but the engine has bolts broken off in block and tranny is shot... Want to blow the engine before it goes off to get crushed.

Anyone can drain oil and redline, I want to kill it some other way.

Suggestions?

Was thinking lock throttle at 3000rpm or so with a gutted oil filter with a little sand, maybe some leftover valve lapping compound in the oil to slowly shred the cams and crank journals until the thing is knocking on heaven's door...

Just wondering what others do to make life easier?

For example, I use feeler guages for many procedures (valves, ring gap, etc) in my manuals as bookmarks (wipe them off before putting them back in). Can get sets of guages on sale for a couple bucks, it is nice to be able to just turn to the page, grab the guage, adjust, wipe, put it back. Also have guages bent/trimmed for easy access (for example 40 degrees pre-bent instead of trying to slide it in at a wierd angle).

Dry rotted tires and a carpet cutter... slice the center of the tire all the way around, use tire spoon to push bead off rim, cut the bead from inside. Beats wrestling a dry tire and busting knuckles.

A cheap ultrasonic cleaner and gallon of simple green can save dozens of hours and lots of headaches cleaning small parts.

Yours?

Almost done swapping out a blower motor on my 240... would have rather swapped out an engine than tackled the mess of removing almost everything up to the firewall.

Looking forward to exhaust, struts, and brakes after this mess.

What horrible jobs have you had to tackle?

Long story short, I have two cars that I am going to scrap... both run.

Before draining the fluids and towing them in for scrap, we figure we should have fun and seize/blow the motors.

*these cars are beyond repair and the engines are not desireable, an old Iron Duke and 83 Essex 3.8.

So, how would you destroy them for fun?

'93 Taurus with Vulcan 3.0L.

Taken out of storage (10 years) a few days ago. All new fluids.

When engine is cold (20F engine temp and below) it won't turn over, but just clicks (solenoid). After a 100 attempts it will turn over. When warm, fires right up... So solenoid or starter?