PSA: I thought the "pour water on a stuck engine" trick was internet nonsense until it worked on a 1998 Civic

Christopher Ward · 2026-09-27T06:25:05.165124+00:00

A customer rolled a 1998 Civic into my bay 3 weeks ago with a motor that was locked up tight from sitting 6 years in a field near Gary, Indiana. I laughed when the old timer next door said to pull the plugs and pour a 50/50 mix of ATF and diesel down the cylinders, then let it sit for 2 days. I did it anyway since the car was already scrap, and on day 3 I put a breaker bar on the crank bolt and it turned over with almost no fight. Ran a compression check after and got 150 psi across all four, so now I owe that guy a case of beer and I'm eating my words. What other old timer tricks did you write off as total BS until you tried them?

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PSA: I thought the "pour water on a stuck engine" trick was internet nonsense until it worked on a 1998 Civic | Auto Mechanics - Free To Speak