Engine Rebuilt in Stop Motion

May 28, 2020 1:32 PM

A nothing short of triumphant stop motion renovation of an engine [SLYT]. LKW-Werksatt in Niederlauer, Germany, rebuilds a Mercedes Benz Actros OM471LAtruck engine.
posted by bouvin (37 comments total)

Impressive... but they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by hiring a Metal Bird (slyt.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:50 PM on May 28, 2020 [4 favorites]

I guess I can now add high profile engine rebuilds to my list of ASMR triggers...
posted by Bob Regular at 2:30 PM on May 28, 2020 [2 favorites]

My next door neighbor did this, but building hot-rods to drag race down the 1/4 mile stretch of highway in front of the K-Mart. Every couple of month a new car would be towed in and he'd strip it down shine and paint it up while putting it back together and then flip it and start over again. Nothing this big though.
posted by zengargoyle at 2:30 PM on May 28, 2020

Absolutely amazing - I got chills when they started it up at the end
posted by Otherwise at 2:35 PM on May 28, 2020

Internal combustion engines to me are like "ok we had a real bad idea... now lets iterate on it for a century until it actually works reliably almost all the time" and the end result is actually kind of *amazing* if it weren't for the externalities.

An ICE has hundreds of parts, compared to an electric drivetrain that has maybe a dozen. And yet they work! Nearly all the time!
posted by dmd at 2:57 PM on May 28, 2020 [6 favorites]

More likely to find this version in the suburbs
posted by cooper green at 3:03 PM on May 28, 2020 [2 favorites]

i was wondering what an electric propulsion motor about this powerful would look like, how complicated it would be, and it turns out they're everywhere running our trains, they're called "traction motors" and are rated up to about 2000 bhp. They're really simple by comparison, even including the modern power electronics that drive them. So, while this is a cool video, I'm like, yeah, look at someone beautifully restoring this ancient shitty technology, wait WHAT they're putting it back on the road?!?!
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:04 PM on May 28, 2020

wtf I love engines now

That was massively satisfying.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:09 PM on May 28, 2020

I would do this and end with random leftover parts!
posted by drewbage1847 at 3:32 PM on May 28, 2020

I rebuilt a VW Bus engine and yes, random leftover parts. If you rebuild enough engines will you eventually have left over enough parts to build a whole engine?
posted by njohnson23 at 3:44 PM on May 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm curious about the production process here. It must have taken many times longer to film than to do the work.
posted by huslage at 3:50 PM on May 28, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yes. The stop-motion was expertly done, giving a lot of personality to mere truck parts.
posted by monotreme at 3:56 PM on May 28, 2020 [5 favorites]

An ICE has hundreds of parts, compared to an electric drivetrain that has maybe a dozen

unless you count the components in the inverter etc
posted by Dr. Twist at 3:57 PM on May 28, 2020

Can only imagine the time it would need to film each aspect of this... incredible.
posted by greenhornet at 4:19 PM on May 28, 2020

Yeah, that was pretty remarkably well done. There's not a chance I would have had the patience to do that in stop motion.

Anybody know what the music was?
posted by ashbury at 4:54 PM on May 28, 2020

Well that was totally unnecessarily delightful.
posted by cortex at 5:18 PM on May 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Wonderful. The symmetry of the way they filmed the removal & replacement parts took a lot of thought. So satisfying.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:22 PM on May 28, 2020

Not your average time-lapse engine rebuild and I've watched many. This is a masterpiece.
posted by rmmcclay at 6:24 PM on May 28, 2020

Yeah, but what was wrong with it?
posted by Admiral Viceroy at 6:32 PM on May 28, 2020

Or you could go to the SQUATCH253 Youtube channel and watch a guy rebuild a Caterpillar D2 engine in slow excruciating detail, explaining just what is wrong with each part and how he fixed/rebuilt/replaced it. But you would miss the orchestral accompaniment and it would take more than five minutes.
posted by leaper at 7:05 PM on May 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

The attention to detail in the video is amazing. They even make it look like bolts are unscrewing at the same rate as they remove parts, meaning they were being careful to turn each one the same amount between each frame. There's a lot of craftsmanship in the video itself as well as the repair/rebuild job.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:24 PM on May 28, 2020 [3 favorites]

The masking before repainting was great. I had a summer job in an engineering shop doing that on pumps before they got painted, and once you know how to cut mask, it's super easy.
posted by scruss at 7:43 PM on May 28, 2020

Yeah, but what was wrong with it?

There wasn’t a video.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:08 PM on May 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

LOWER THE PISSING WINCH
posted by flabdablet at 9:36 PM on May 28, 2020

Internal combustion engines are such a Rube Goldberg technology compared to electric motors. So many pieces, moving and otherwise.

Imagine how reliable cars and trucks are going to get once we've been collectively spending as many years on improving the mass production engineering devoted to fuel cells, batteries and motors as we have on that for engines.
posted by flabdablet at 9:44 PM on May 28, 2020 [2 favorites]

That felt very much like a Sesame Street video (not a complaint)
posted by ckape at 11:24 PM on May 28, 2020

This was good but I recommend watching with the trees music from
https://www.metafilter.com/187268/Bread-Trees-Circuses-Relaxing-Music
posted by hypnogogue at 7:19 AM on May 29, 2020

Yeah, but what was wrong with it?

large truck engines like that typically need a rebuild after they have reached 500,000 miles or higher. truck engines are built to go for a very long time and 1,000,000 miles on a truck is common.
posted by Dr. Twist at 8:36 AM on May 29, 2020

Anybody know what the music was?

His Thoughtful Eyes, by Fabian Tell
posted by Dr. Twist at 8:42 AM on May 29, 2020

Here's a teardown of a one-cylinder two-stroke engine if you'd like a glimpse of how simple an ICE engine can be.
posted by Harald74 at 9:38 AM on May 29, 2020

Imagine how reliable cars and trucks are going to get once ....

Actually, electric vehicles are already way more reliable, which is why dealers won't sell them.
posted by overhauser at 11:49 AM on May 29, 2020

I have a big rusty engine very similar to this one in my boat and I would dearly love some kind of magic elf to do this to it. It's sooooo rusty!
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 2:29 PM on May 30, 2020

and Harald74's video is of a spark ignition engine. Remove all the fiddly electrics and you've got a diesel, the simplest of all.

(well, okay, a ram jet's the simplest of all, but)
posted by scruss at 5:18 PM on May 31, 2020

The YouTube algorithm threw up this very relaxing 1967 Alfa Romeo engine assembly video.

BTW, "sprocket" is one of the best words in the English language.
posted by Harald74 at 10:43 PM on May 31, 2020

Agreed! As are its friends "placket", "aglet" and "axolotl".
posted by flabdablet at 6:22 AM on June 1, 2020

a ram jet's the simplest of all

Pulse jets give them a run for their money.
posted by flabdablet at 10:40 AM on June 1, 2020

Actually, electric vehicles are already way more reliable, which is why dealers won't sell them.

Since there are no electric trucks capable of doing what that Merc truck can, you are making an apple to oranges comparison. Something that doesn't exist is by definitely not as reliable as something that does exist. Also, you should talk to someone with a 4-5 year old Tesla Model S to see what weird ass shit happens with the central computer starts wigging out (nothing like the same problem causing your heater to be on 24/7 AND preventing you from rolling your windows down!) before you declare that all EVs are more reliable than something along the lines of a Toyota Corolla.
posted by sideshow at 12:39 PM on June 8, 2020