Why the previous owner gave up on the project.

[Lionelgee]

Hello All,

Have you ever bought a vehicle-based project that seems well advanced and wondered why the previous owner downed tools and decided to sell the project?

I recently bought a vintage diesel motor which was in pieces. I bought it for a spare parts motor. The previous owner advertised that they had decided to fit a different motor to their project. This was after they had stripped all the external parts off the block and the head was off. The bores and pistons looked okay.

I thought this afternoon that I might have a go at putting a big socket and a long bar on the crankshaft nut and attempt to turn the crankshaft over to see if the pistons were sized. I had a look at the end of the crankshaft so I could work out what size socket to fit to the crankshaft nut. Then I went... "okay, that might well have done it"... be enough for the previous owner to call an end to the job. The crankshaft bolt - not an unsubstantial one, with the socket size of 1 1/2 inches, was broken off just below flush with the end of the crankshaft.

I intend to carry on after the previous owner's setback.

What was your discovery that might have meant the project's previous owner decided to down-tools and walk away from the job?

Kind regards
Lionel

[prelude]

Not so much catastrophic discoveries as more incremental "fed up with" cases.

Allow me to explain from personal experience; We bought a jeep TJ (you bought a what?! :P) for a mate of mine last year june. We paid 6k for the car which was, shall we say, in a crunchy state and needed plenty of work. With the absurd car prices over here we decided we could spend A LOT of money on the car and still be ahead on the price/quality of similar advertised vehicles.

As it turns out we sunk another 6k into the car and the chassis and moving parts are in really good condition but the engine still runs like **** even after replacing nearly every single part of the ignition system and nearly all sensors and we are starting to despair what else it could possibly be. It may well end up being sold for less then was spent on it with the new owner spending another 1k on it and end up with a perfect vehicle thinking: That was an easy fix, why would anyone get rid of this car with "only" this fault? All the rest is nearly brand new!

Personally I am a stubborn bloke so I nearly never get rid of anything, I'll just store it in the shed (which is quite large with 360m2 I admit) and look into it months, sometimes even years later but not everyone is in that position :)

Cheers,
-P