My buddies were right!, i hard on my vehicles!

As i was coming home from work last Tues. night, i hit the on-ramp and noticed two Semi's barreling down the freeway side by side. Thought they were farther down, entered the road and all of a sudden they were on my ass. I had to punch it, and she took off for about 3 seconds then instantly started sounding like a cement mixer. Long story short, it limped me home, at 15 miles an hour, and 10 minuets away turned into 30. Cracked the block open the next day, this is what i found.

 

Looks like the crank gave up. Never seen one separate like that before.

 

you surley didnt need that. never seen one break in that area .

 

Boy you are hard on equipment!

 

Holy hell!!!! And thats a strange area.....

Sent from my DROID device using the TJJ mobile app

 

You didn't break that or cause it to break, it broke! Standard trans?

 

Was that crank ever ground?

I saw one years ago that had broken and when pulled apart there was no fillet on the journal.

 

Wow holy crap, but a great time to go bigger.

 

I'm calling bullshit! It wasn't your driving. THAT has to be some defect. Stuff another crank in and continue driving like you do. If it breaks again then maybeeeee.

Real question is are you running an automatic. I have heard of torque converters ballooning and putting excessive pressure on the thrust area. JMO

 

On a happier note, i pulled the fresh 307 out of my Belair, stuck her in, and just fired her up in the truck today.

 

It's a Turbo 400, and the wierd part about that is that it was actually getting a little tired out.
"olds vroom" 307 was there at hand or i would build her bigger.
"cmyhtrod" This was a used engine i got from a buddy 6 years ago, so i'm not sure.

 

Looks like something the small block diesels were doing in the late '70s.

 

I think i have one more piece of the puzzle. 14 months ago my harmonic balancer cracked at the keyway, and i replaced it with an old balancer. I could have had a low end harmonic that found the weakest point after time. Or...., could the crank have caused the harmonic balancer to fail? Chicken or the egg?

 

Only time I've had that happen was because of a balancer that cracked at the keyway.

 

very interesting, never seen one do that

 

a balancer failure would have started the crack the hamering it probably finished it off , cast crank not that good anyway in the later years . Jb weld it back together ..

 

''''''''''''''formerly a ..... Rod Tosser's ''''''''''''''''

currently a "Crank Breaker's"

lol
never seen one do it like that either , man o man

 

Looks pretty good, except for the crack. At least the semis didn't run you over and make that the least of your problems. Hard to believe you could still drive that for 30 min. like that and get it home and not have the whole lower end chewed to pieces.

 

"Unclee" AHH-HAA!!! Makes sense.

 

"stude trucks", It is amazing on both counts!
1- that i'm not road kill.
2- that the thing held together to get me home.
I think that if it cracked any other way than it did it probably would'nt have.