OK slow news day but I figured it might be fun to share tales of a spectacular kablamos that resulted in you finding an engine bit in an unexpected spot.
Mine is my D-sports Racer: the motor was a Yamaha 1000 that came apart at 12,000 RPM. I found a piece of rock shaped metal in the transmission case. It was the small end of the #2 rod. I was amazed that the part, ejected the wrist pin, penetrated the crankcase, went past the gear set and was wedged into the top of the transmission case.
I had the gear end of a camshaft that I pulled out of the side of the block where the #1 piston and connecting rod said a few words and departed the building due to an overrev (about 9.5k rpm). 350 SBC in a Lemons race.
I still have it on my desk at work.
I have no idea how it got there. The rest of the cam was still in place.
don't know how far the rod travelled after it bounced off the pavement since I never found it
This one isn't mine, but It got some good distance! Would have got more if not for the pesky car following it didn't get in the way.
Connecting rod cap on top of a starter neon
Driveshaft 12 feet outside of car twisted like a pretzel after a reverse lockout didn't... duster
Air cleaner nut in muffler, the long way. 68 torino.
I had a 390 FE rod, turned 180 degrees with the big end attached firmly to the piston opposite. I no longer have it but it was on my shelf for decades.
There was a video I saw somewhere - on here maybe? - of a diesel truck during one of those dyno day things that sent a piston about 20 rows up into the crowd. Somehow it didn't hit anyone. When a guy sitting somewhat nearby went over to retrieve it, he was smart enough to pick it up with a Leatherman or something similar since it was still smoking.
I had a friend that I had built a car for call me from Sebring during a track day. He said, "The starter fell off." He knew this because a corner worker handed him the part that had flown off the car.
He brought it home and I shine a flashlight where the starter is supposed to be. Some of the starter is still bolted to the car. The part that came off was pushed off by the #4 rod that came through the block and knocked holes in both sides and the oil pan.
Jamestown engine plant for Cummins.
I sent a turbine wheel up the exhaust and into a farmers field behind the plant.
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :
We have a winner.
I probably coasted 150' from where I left chunks of gears and transmission casing from a FWD Bonneville. Lesson learned: don't trust rebuilds, don't trust 19 year old drivers
I'm reminded of the famous picture of the Magic Muffler Fiat alterered drag car, dropping the crank and pistons from its Hemi engine on the ground in 1965.
In reply to stuart in mn :
I remember a colour picture of that in Hot Rod Ciara 1970
My Dad forgot to check the oil in our old Snapper riding mower. It kept spinning slower and slower as he mowed, so he kept upping the throttle. I hear a "BANG" from the yard and see smoke coming from the engine and something smoking in the yard behind him. The connecting rod bottom end had pitched itself through the case at warp speed and landed a good 50 feet away.
Decades ago me and 81CPCamaro swapped rear gears in my '90 Lincoln Mark VII but screwed something up. I think we didn't use the right Loc-Tite if I recall. The ring gear spit out several bolts over time. One bolt got sucked up into the R&P and took out a chunk of teeth on both gears. I found the head of one bolt BEHIND the pinion gear, beside the pinion shaft itself. No idea how it got there.
We got maybe a tenth of a mile down a stage when the #3 rod got bored and decided to go see the bright wide world, and the loose nut behind the wheel tried to make it to the end of the stage to make recovery easier and went another 4 miles before the rest of the engine threw the protest flag, making recovery of course mmmmore difficult. Course worker handed us the half-a-rod he saw us donate to the scenery after the rally..LOL does that count?
I remember seeing a piston and rod assembly laying in middle of the road on an exit ramp.
It was followed by a trail of oil for about 75 yards, which led to an MGB parked in the breakdown lane.
My guess was that the third gear downshift turned out to be first.
It wasn't the engine, but I was grinding too close to the battery and it exploded. Blew the top off. It landed on my neighbor's roof.
I was leaning over the battery when it happened. I'm not sure why it didn't blow my face off.
-I wasn't there, but it was a gas turbine overspeed. There turbines are sometimes in buildings, this one maybe 75-100 feet tall. Someone had the brilliant idea to take a picture of the ceiling. It looked like a planetarium. The stub shaft was thrown a good 100 feet, which was also impressive.
Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:I remember seeing a piston and rod assembly laying in middle of the road on an exit ramp.
It was followed by a trail of oil for about 75 yards, which led to an MGB parked in the breakdown lane.
My guess was that the third gear downshift turned out to be first.
Ha, I did this with my first turbo 225. It had a 3spd w/od and I screwed the pooch in what was supposed to be a od to 3rd to pass someone. The next trans wasn't that sloppy, nor were my shifts.
In reply to NorseDave :
It actually bounced off the sign above the stands hard enough to leave a decent sized dent before landing where the guy picked it up.
Worked the Winter Nationals in Pomona while I was TDY at Port Hueneme 12-ish years back.
Funny cars were making passes, all of a sudden in the top of the stands came a little girl screaming and crying. Another person working helped me get her and her family out of the stands and called the medics.
Part of the porcelain of the spark plug had been launched out of the exhaust, flew through the air, and came down right in the right spot to hit her hair, burn/fuse to her hair, and then lay on the helix of her ear, giving her a second degree burn.
At the point where the car was the closest to her she was still probably ~100 feet away from the car. She started screaming when the car was at the end of the track. Lord knows how far through the air that chunk flew before it hit her.
This isn't on a car per se, but I used to do consulting for a grinding company that would finish grind jet turbines. I was present and troubleshooting code on one of their grinding machines in a cluster when I heard what I thought was a bomb going off behind me. One of their cup wheels wasn't balanced properly and the operator made a jog mistake and touched off too hard onto the part OD and broke the mounting quill. half of the wheel and quill went straight through the lexan safety window, straight up into the air, through the metal roof, and laid to rest about 50' away on the actual roof outside.
It shook me, deeply. High speed grinding machines scare the everloving poop out of me.
In reply to golfduke :
Ooo!! You reminded me of another couple stories. Not really suitable for this thread though. I'll dig up my stories thread
Tom1200 said:OK slow news day but I figured it might be fun to share tales of a spectacular kablamos that resulted in you finding an engine bit in an unexpected spot.
Mine is my D-sports Racer: the motor was a Yamaha 1000 that came apart at 12,000 RPM. I found a piece of rock shaped metal in the transmission case. It was the small end of the #2 rod. I was amazed that the part, ejected the wrist pin, penetrated the crankcase, went past the gear set and was wedged into the top of the transmission case.
...all in the space of .001 second.
When I raced at Seattle, which incorporated a drag strip into the front straight, we used to camp at the track and would take a walk to pick up valves, piston pieces etc. from blown drag cars.
Worst I ever did was a blow up that took out the sides of the crankcase and left the distributor hanging in the air by the wire in mid air.
OTOH, it did confirm my feeling that the clamped wrist pin connecting rod design wasn't necessarily a weak point in the MG pushrod engines.
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