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Expert 5K+
Posts: 8948
     
Location: WHEELING,WV.>>>HOME OF WWVA | during the factory build process when was our motors broke in -----------------------------------later |
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 8445
Location: Perth Australia | I remember when I was a kid that you used to see cars driving on the road with a sign on the back saying "running in please pass", so I think they would have run the cam in at the factory (after the car was all together) and that was it.
The first oil change ect would have been done on the cars first service
Pretty much how its done today really, but you dont see the running in signs any more
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Expert
Posts: 3780
Location: NorCal |
I don't think they were "broken in" in the classic sense but I've seen pics of engines being run on "hot stands" to check for operation and leaks. |
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Expert
Posts: 3575
Location: Netherlands | You can see pics of the engine hot testing area on this link at about 1/3rd of the page down;
http://www.allpar.com/corporate/bios/weertman-chron.html
Edited by BigBlockMopar 2015-01-08 3:14 AM
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 8948
Location: WHEELING,WV.>>>HOME OF WWVA | thanks big block , that's more of what i was lookin for . never saw photos of any kind till now ------------------------------------------------------later |
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Expert
Posts: 1819
Location: Vancouver, BC | The owners manuals used give instructions on how to break in your engine. You drove no more than XX mph for so many miles and then yy mph for so many miles. Your first oil change was done at so many miles and you used so and so grade of oil.
When I get my stuff unpacked and sorted I'll scan the instructions in my copy of the 1936 Plymouth owners manual. Auto and lubricating technology has come a long way since the 1930's.
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Exner Expert 19,174 posts. Neil passed away 18 Sep 2015. You will be missed, Neil!
Posts: 19146
Location: bishop, ca | IIRC, our cars were built and delivered with "break-in" quality motor oil in them.
I've got video(s) showing the building and testing of the 1955 Ply V/8 engines, at the factory.
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Expert
Posts: 2312
Location: Arizona | I don't recall all the details but I read an interesting article about the need for "breaking in" cars. For many of today's cars it might not be as necessary but in the old days they had studied what happens between the rings and the cylinder walls of brand new cars and found that there was as critical piston speed (how fast the piston is going up and down, not how fast the engine is turning although obviously they are related) that you did not want to exceed. If you exceeded that speed with a freshly machined engine bore the bore metal would literally melt and transfer to the rings. I think for typical cars it was around 3500 - 4000 engine rpm. As you know, with some of these old cars with high numerical axle ratios it didn't take much to hit that rpm even in normal driving by a spirited driver or anyone who decided to hit the expressway and "see what this baby can do". Doing such wouldn't immediately ruin the engine but it could make it an oil burner and otherwise shorten it's life. By the time you put 1000 miles of "breakin miles" on the engine the rings and walls were seated in and the high piston speeds no longer would cause problems. The other major issue with breakin was the notion of not driving at a steady speed. The point of that was, especially back in the day, coasting would create a high vacuum which would pull some crankcase oil up into the piston ring area and make sure it was well lubed during the breakin period. I have always done a "breakin" even with modern cars I own, just to be safe. But when I was driving fleet vehicles I didn't always pay so much attention to it and sometimes gave in to the "lets see what this baby can do" after only a few hundred miles. Never found that to have caused any long term problems. So I wonder if in large part it's a worry that's not warranted... Still, I will continue to "break in" my own new personal cars....... Or any engines that have been rebuilt.. those are probably the ones most likely to need a proper break in since non-factory engine builders don't have the zillion dollar machining resources the manufacturers do to make the initial finish bullet proof. |
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Expert
Posts: 3780
Location: NorCal |
Formula 1 engines are broken at 20,000 rpm. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 310
Location: Newcastle Australia | The engines weren't run in at the factory. Just started and run for short period to check operation and leaks.
Following WWII most manufacturers started to move away from this practice as it added too much cost to the vehicle. Following the "quality" catch phrase from the reemergence of the japanese manufacturers, quality control during assembly became far more economical. Get it right first time. Strangely the US manufacturers were the last to come on board and most suffered dearly. These days engines are started for the first time when it's in the car. |
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Exner Expert 19,174 posts. Neil passed away 18 Sep 2015. You will be missed, Neil!
Posts: 19146
Location: bishop, ca | Well, you/we gotta define "run-in" (at the factory).
The engines were 'started' at/on the production line...and the cars were 'driven' for a [very-] short time, there.....to make
sure that they were drivable (there), so, how much driving, at the factory, constitutes a "run in" ?
1/2/3 miles?
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Expert
Posts: 3780
Location: NorCal |
I've seen videos of cars rolling off the end of a modern production line onto a dyno/treadmill and run through the gears before departing the plant. |
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Expert
Posts: 1530
Location: ZH, Switzerland | 57chizler - 2015-01-14 7:22 PM I've seen videos of cars rolling off the end of a modern production line onto a dyno/treadmill and run through the gears before departing the plant. During my 8 month stay in SC back in 2000/2001 several times I visited the factory of BMW in Greer (Greenville) just to look at how they were assembling the cars. The test stand at the end of the production line is just to check all the functions and to make sure that the computor controlled automatic transmission shifts through all the gears. They checked also if the speedometer is within the specification and nothing rattles. I couldn't say that's a break in of the engine. It's still in the hand of the drivers. Almost all of the manufactureres addressing the first oil change after the first 1000 mi combined many times with the first maintenance for free. Happy Motoring! Dieter |
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Expert
Posts: 2312
Location: Arizona | Most people who buy a new car don't want to see more then 1 or 2 miles on the odometer, if even that much. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 836
Location: Layton, Utah | One of my friends bought a 70 383 road runner back in the early 90s,4 speed, and it ran like a sob ! It would lay rubber forever. Everyone thought the engine had a lot of stuff done to it. He finally took the engine apart and it was a Loosey goosey worn out engine. An old mechanic said that if you run an engine hard is whole life it will learn that. Who knows. It would obviously need to be maintained to keep it alive. Kind of makes sense because if you drive a car that has been grandma driven it seems kind of poochy. |
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factory motor breakin ??????
