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Parting Out prior to C.A.R.S. turn in, What to keep?

Hasn't anyone watched the Youtube vids of the engines being seized? Isn't it making any of you absolutely sick? It's the destruction of perfectly good (well, you know) vehicles that can go to the po people or something better than just scrap!

I agree wholeheatedly. I watched those "snuff vids" with a morbid curiosity. It really blows when you hear a perfect good sounding engine taking it's last "breath" after that crap is poured into its crankcase. :thumbdwn:
 



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now we all have to be worried about is some punk kids getting their hands on that liquid glass stuff and vandalizing cars......hahaha! just another reason to not like this program. at least its over today.

our lot has over 40 clunkers and i found out today that the governent has not paid for a single one of them.......how long are we going to be out over $180,000?! its a shame too...i can see them from where im typing and i see a nice dodge truck a 2nd gen ex and quite a few perfectly clean jeeps and toyotas......what a waste.
 






now we all have to be worried about is some punk kids getting their hands on that liquid glass stuff and vandalizing cars......hahaha! just another reason to not like this program. at least its over today.

our lot has over 40 clunkers and i found out today that the governent has not paid for a single one of them.......how long are we going to be out over $180,000?! its a shame too...i can see them from where im typing and i see a nice dodge truck a 2nd gen ex and quite a few perfectly clean jeeps and toyotas......what a waste.

Is everybody ready to crap their pants in horror?????

...just at the junkyard today, somebody "CLUNKED" a late 90's-early 2000's (didn't look) Dodge 2500 4x4, WITH A CUMMINS DIESEL w/ 110K?????????? The guy at the junkyard was equally baffled. and,get this, it STILL RUNS with no oil, and that sodium silicate crap in it. He said they started it aftr they got it. It knocks like hell, but it runs. I guess the dealership gave up trying to kill it. What IDIOT turned this thing in ????? and why would the dealer take it as a clunker? It would have made more sense to pay the guy a decent tradein and resell it. That motor alone, if it were good, was worth $3500 complete. and the truck was in decent shape too.
 












Doonz said: "I have found once you have got some elbow grease, blood, and knuckle skin into a car, it's a lot harder to let it go. The study I read was for people who don't even know what a ratchet is. For those of us who wrench it's much, much cheaper."

I agree! I've invested a lot of sweat equity in my 92 Ex. For the past several years, or 100,000 miles, I've been doing the repairs myself, or with the help of a friend. I really don't want to part with it. And someday, Explorers will be classics, like the Early Bronco. (However, to help preserve my Explorer, I plan to semi-retire it as daily driver, get something smaller for commuting, but keep the Ex for snow or when I need a real truck to haul stuff).

I read the description of how they kill the cars. It sounds too much like Dr. Kevorkian. I couldn't do that to my Explorer. I've been through too much (good and bad) with that truck. I'd donate it to charity before I'd kill it.

I think that the purpose of the CARS program was largely political. (1) People like to get "free money" from the government, and it gets votes. (2) Environmental groups hate SUV's, and they needed to be paid back for the votes that they delivered. (3) There's the "social engineering" aspect. The easy way to get people out of those big, bad, environment-destroying, gas-guzzling Explorers, and into politically-correct Corollas was to bribe, rather than coerce them. That may come later in the form of higher taxes, registration fees, or even the refusal to register older vehicles. I hope not, but "Just because we're paranoid doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get us!":D

Bob
 






Well, lets also not loose site of what this plan was really for. In the end it was a way to get people buying new rolling Detroit iron. The Big 3 and the dealerships were sinking faster the a rock in a pond. They were making, but no one was buying. Washington couldn't get enough dough (even on paper) to straight out save the Big 2 that were in real trouble (Ford was doing ok), so they candy coated it in some Washington every flavored bull crap, and sold it back in a way to make several groups happy all at once, and get the senators to play along.

Me, I would rather have seen them just give the money to the dealers and the Big 3, and spare all those crushed cars. But they couldn't get anyone to swallow a bailout bottom line that big, and the "greenies" were screaming for some SUV blood. I'm not saying their wrong, I'll always be behind better MPH and less pollution. But you get that by making sure everything new is SciFi fantastic, not by destroying the old stuff for a little bit of improvement.

If the basis to get the credit was that you had to DOUBLE your MPG's.... then I would have been more behind it. My 05 Hyundai gets about exactly double what my X gets, and I drive that when MPG counts. But the Hyundai can't haul around a boat, or 4x4 like I want too. Course my Trans Am gets about 1/4 what the X gets..... But we never drive it at all. About 6-8 MPG on that gas hog.

Anyway, it sucked how many X's had to die to keep the Big 2 afloat. But they have had more or less a good year mainly due to this program, and if it keeps American made iron in business, and keeps the automakers in a job (so they don't come after mine) then if I can't say I'm happy, at least it could be worse, they could have ended up out of business. If this helped keep that from happening, then it's a price worth paying I guess. Only time will tell if it was boom or bust. And who knows if any other plan would have worked either, hindsight is 20/20.
 






Me and the wife were thinking about using the X for Cash for Clunkers. But then I did some reasearch and it seemed that the only comprable vehicle we could get that would be eligable and inside our budget was a ****ty Kia Sorento 2wd or Sportage 4wd.

So after thinking, I said #### it. We'll keep the X, and down the road buy a used SUV and fix up the 93 for a rotation car, or give it to my middle stepdaughter.
 






Back in my more asinine days my friends and I bought a $hitb0x or two and tortured it to death...memories of a certain Dart with a 225 Slant 6 come to mind...but I grew out of the teenage destroy phase. It really seems so juvenile. Like doonze said, I think, just give the money to the Medium 2 (used to be the Big 3) and not destroy the cars. Now I'm looking for a cheap hunk of tin for my girl's grandma to roll in, and man, some of those cars in those snuff vids (Thanks, celly, you have a way with words) would have done just fine.
Incidentally, I'd love to see what a 225 would do with Sodium Silicate. Probably spit it back in your face and laugh. We ran one on creek water for 6 hours at redline, and I swear it ran better when we finally gave it up trying to kill it... It's amazing what a Dodge Dart will go through at 5500 rpms...
 






most popular cluncker turn in

some one said that the most popular cluncker turn in was the ford explorer. i imediatley fell sick to my stomach. what exactley is the fluid that they put in to seize the motor? about the cummins that wouldnt quit, we truck drivers know a good motor ween we see one.
 






what exactley is the fluid that they put in to seize the motor?

Sodium Silicate solution. Add heat and it turns to glass.
 






Sodium Silicate solution. Add heat and it turns to glass.

I think I just heard on one of the "hot rod"-type tv shows that sodium silicate is what they use in some of the "head gasket in a bottle" stuff. One them, "Blue Devil" is pretty highly regarded. I wonder how it can be effective at sealing leaks, but not sealing things like coolant passages? Maybe just cause those holes are too big? I can't imagine it's good for the water pump either. Has anybody used these types of "repair" fluids successfully?
 






The mixture is a solution of sodium silicate and water. Upon the engine getting hot, the water evaporates off leaving a coating of the sodium silicate (anhydrous i think is the term) on all the bearing surfaces. This quickly abrades the bearings and surfaces, causing the surfaces to become red hot and fuze together. Take a bit of sand and rub it between your fingers--you get the idea.
UGH!!
Incidentally, for those who've seen it, the Volvo video on Youtube wasn't typical--it was a twin turbo (!), and the amount of oil remaining in the turbos, coolers and lines is what kept that poor car going so long-just enough to keep it from seizing.
I think that the way the head gasket sealant works is that when the sodium silicate hits super hot metal it solidifies, and the places in the head where it would work are so much hotter than the coolant galleries that it makes it viable. Or something.
 






Amusingly, I just took a job as a flatbed car carrier op, and got to not only witness the destruction of ten cars today, but was the one to haul them off. Only maybe 50% of them really needed to go to the grave--the other half of them were anywhere from decent to semi-sweet. At the yard I towed them to, there had to be at least 50 clunked cars, and many of them were either decent Ford pickups or Exploders. More than a few had less than 120,000 mi. on them. Lots of Jeeps too, but I won't go there.
 






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