I remember that "Engine Overhaul" stuff !! When I was young ( long time ago), a radio station in Chicago, WJJD, that played country music, pushed that stuff !!

I believe I still have a metal can of "Wynn's Friction Proof " additive, which actually kinda worked ! Sorta like Marvel Mystery Oil is today...

 

My favorite scam of that type was "Motalloy Tablets" sold back in the 1950s, advertised in the back of mechanics' magazines and in the J.C. Whitney catalog. You were supposed to drop some magic tablets down the spark plug holes where they would expand to seal worn rings, pistons, and bores. I'm sure that worked out just great.

 

 

I didn't look far enough but here is the whole kit with the pellets. lol

 

To avoid the cost of developing their own engines, some of the 50's and 60's British sports cars used "Coventry Climax" engines. These were actually designed as stationary fire pump engines intended to ran at full RPM at full load from cold start. The were known to be really tough!

They appeared in everything from forklifts to formula racers. Even raced in LeMans in 1954.

 

That's pretty cool history! Makes you wonder how many applications like this there were.

 

Looks like the 1970s version of the same snake oil! Who needs expensive machine work, rings, pistons, and bearings to overhaul an engine?

 

What's scary is that there must have been enough people buying this kind of stuff to keep them in business for many years. lol

 

In regard to those British engines, Road & Track Magazine had an article in the '70s about the Japanese 4-cyl engines that were getting common here, versus the Brit engines. They said the the Japanese engines didn't have that sound, like they were COMING APART, like the Brit engines did, and added (which they were )
My oldest son, in those days had some British cars, Triumph, MG etc, and I had to do the engines in all of his cars, and wasn't impressed with their durability...
The Brits built stuff on tradition & not technology, it seems.. And of course they went away as imports here, because of emissions requirements....

 

I grew up with MGs, and my first car was a Triumph TR6. The problem with old British motors and transmissions is that British steel at that time was brittle. Where American steel would bend, British steel would break. That made for some very exciting catastrophic failures.

 

There's a lot of things you could say about the old British motors (cars)... most had to do with the sheer lack of reliability. One thing for sure that's been stated here is definitely tradition. Even today, Morgan's are still hand built (crafted really) and have a half wooden frame. I've seen the whole process, and it's quite something.
I will give them a tip of the hat for designing some seriously sexy classic cars that look just as good today as they did 50 or 60 years ago when they were "new".

 

Yeah... Sometimes too traditional in one word... "Lucas".

 

Here's a Lucas repair kit.

I own an Alfa Romeo and have owned them in the past. Soooo much better than the British crap.

 

Lol... That's funny! Man...what a mess lucas was. For me it was British bikes. I finally figured out the system was not smart enough to think on it's own and started converting them into a negative ground system. All the parts were right, they were just all wired up backwards and not smart enough to know the difference.

 

Yes the MGs,Triumphs,cooper and even the Land Rovers were all unreliable. They would nickel and dime you to death. Simple things like master cylinders and wheel cylinders,electric things. Even today the Land Rover is a overpriced pos with a copied 1960s era buick engine! I was an MGB fan for awhile and the only good thing about them was the girl factor.