I can tell you exactly how it happened, this car was a learning
experience for me.  I bought it for the princely sum of $150 since it
had no brakes, wouldn't start, had been wrecked into a parked car by
the PO, and none of the accessories worked..  A brake job, some
rewiring, new tires, an idler arm, a junkyard fender and an adjustment
to the choke pull off later and I was driving,  But someone had dropped
a "reman" 225 in it at some point, as all that was original was the
exhaust manifold - it had later style head, intake and carb.  Whoever
did it was a friggin' idiot; they left off the heavy metal brace
between the engine and trans which apparently is important.  (I didn't
know it was even supposed to be there until I started looking for parts
in the junkyard and looked at a few other cars.)  They also patched the
cooler lines with fuel hose.  After I had the trans replaced for the
first time, after the flexplate sheared on me,  the fuel hose failed
literally the day i picked the car up, with smoky results and also a
good amount of slippage due to running out of fluid at speed.  I was
fairly annoyed with the mechanic that I'd paid to replace the trans...
you would have thought that he might have brought this to my attention.
Guess not.

I replaced the trans myself at the side of the road with another
junkyard unit, being out of money at this point (I'd just graduated
from college and hadn't found a Real Job(tm) yet.)  Yes, at the same
time I replaced the tranny cooler lines with hard lines.  When this
trans turned out to be DOA, I sold the car to a girl who had been
admiring the car ever since I got it.  She obviously had good taste in
vehicles, her DD was an old Jeepster Commando so I knew it was going to
a good home.  Last time I talked to her, she'd hammered out all the
dents, put a decent paint job on it, and had pulled the whole
drivetrain for a real post mortem.  Apparently above and beyond the
missing brace, the root cause of the issues was the reman engine, which
I'd ASSumed to be good since it ran strong and smooth.  Here apparently
there was a good 1/4" of crank endplay, explaining the blowed up
flexplate and subsequent front pump failure.  Once that was sorted, her
boyfriend was apparently using the car as a DD with no problems.  (IMHO
he didn't appreciate just how good he had it, but that's another story
for another time...)

Now I am retrospectively kicking myself, as in the neighborhood/circle
of acquantances I had at the time, there was not only my Dart, but a
'64? Valiant, a '65 Dart, and a '69 Valiant all floating around.  The
'69 I convinced my then-GF to buy as a DD, which despite the complaints
of her mom was a hell of a car.  I think she paid $1100 for it and all
it needed was new front end bushings to get through PA's safety
inspection.  She drove that for a good 5-6 years with the only major
repair needed being a rebuilt head, when she burned a valve probably by
never having the valves adjusted. Only other issue with that car was it
ate points, and at one point the stock Holley basically disintegrated
interally and was replaced by a Carter.  The '64 was pristine, but
oddly enough also wrecked in the exact same manner as my car by its
owner (and probably in a similar state of inebriation.)  The '65 was
for sale for a good price, but had a bad carburetor according to its
owner.  In hindsight, I should have probably bought a reman carb for a
test drive, because IIRC the asking price was under $1K and it was
almost as nice as the '64.  (had my car had the stock single barrel, I
probably would have bought it as I would have had a carb at my
disposal.  My GF wouldn't let me borrow the carb off of her car for
whatever reason...)  All were four doors, 225/904s and all but mine
were in exceptional shape - keep in mind that this was in Pittsburgh
ca. 1998 so a rust free car of that vintage was very rare.  I would
have been happy with any of these cars, but ended up replacing the '67
with an '84 Rabbit GTI instead... a good car in its own right, but
certainly not as distinctive as an old A-body.  Plus I had my '67 that
could have been used for a parts car, with four brand new brake
assemblies.

Also about that time I located a '67 GT hardtop in a local junkard in
exceptional shape, with a 273/auto.  I seriously considered buying it
whole from the junkyard as a project, until one day I was there buying
parts for my car when I found that they'd sold the transmission out of
it, by flipping the car on its side with a forklift and cutting it out
with a torch.  I really liked the owner of the yard, but I bit back a
few choice words that day...

sorry for the long rambling...

nate

I had an '85 Laser, and the transaxle was a nightmare.  I had 480,000
miles on the original engine and original turbocharger, but junked
the car when the manual transaxle blew for the fifth time.

Every single one of the transaxle problems had to due with fluid loss.
Some of them were due to slow leaks, others rapid loss.  All in different
places, and all requiring a new transaxle.  (And no, I didn't buy
cheap rebuilts, although I did do the rebuild _once_ myself.  After
that experience, I decided to pay for the next one.)

Incidentally, I have a box of spare tune-up parts for that car somewhere.
If anybody's driving one of the 2.8L things, send me an address and I'll
send you some oil filters, rotors, plugs, etc.
--scott

<<snip>>

I think most any boring machine would use a replaceable tip such as
tungsten carbide or some other popular cutting material. At any rate a
sleeve is always a better way to go, particularly (from a heat transfer
standpoint) a wet liner. I am no fan of dry liners because experience
with dry linered 71 series Detroits shows "most people" will not take
the time to get the clearances right and heat transfer suffers. Both
sleeve and block suffer.

There are modern bore and ring materials combinations that are easy to
do with liners but impossible in a cast block and that's another big
incentive to go linered.

The old Supra/Cressida/LC DOHC six in the old Eighties ones was hell
for stout, but it weighed as much as a small block Chevy or Ford for
something like 180 CID. So it should have been overdesigned on the
lower end. I have no idea whether they are cheaply available from the
rice importers. I know getting diesels is like pulling teeth because
the Phillipines and South Americans buy all the yards can supply. If
you want a used Isuzu, Mits or Nissan diesel you buy a non-automotive
core and convert it over.

Most of those Supras, and the Celicas that were the same car firewall
aft, are dead of rust now. Their popularity with Oriental punk gang
members hasn't helped their desirability either-like the gay
hairdressers that bought Citroen SMs and rural retards fixated on
certain GM two-doors.

On the street or in the water or the air, there is no CID limitation
and we don't tax by displacement in the US. So although you may have
the satisfaction of being able to say you have the highest specific
output, you are not getting any advantage over more displacement. A
reliable engine that has a good displacement to weight ratio and is
compact has a lot going for it, something a lot of European engines do
not-they are small displacement because they traditionally taxed
vehicles on engine size, leading to such ridiculous things as the 700
lb DOHC Jag sixes made in 2.6 or some laughable size.

Been watching this thread with a humorus eye .
   They're all pretty easy when they're on a stand unless you have to
buy or fabricate "special tool #  blah-blah-blah" or
 perform some part of the operation during a certain phase of the moon
while standing on your left foot and stirring a bucket of chicken
entrails at the same time .
 Not too much more than a big metal puzzle .
   Servicablility and maintenance ............   Now THAT'S a real
PITA on most everything nowadays .   Will