so i have my roadster pickup roadworthy a brand new build and have been driving it alot lately trying to break the engine in properly and get some miles on her , at first driving on short jaunts and i took it for her first long cruise last fri around 140 miles round trip , as i was going down the interstate i heard a ting and looked in the rearview to see a bolt tumbling down the highway but couldnt stop due to trafic , finallly got to a resteraunt and crawled under and gave a quick look but didnt see anything missing , drove home 60 miles no prob ! sat night drove her another 130 miles to a crawfish boil , ran like a top ! so last night i decide to suprise my girlfriends son and pick him up and go for a drive ( he's 11 ) we go for a nice 30 mile drive and when we get back to town i go to hit a fast food place , pull in the back lot shut her off and get out , to my horror oil starts pissing out the side by the steering box and the underneath is covered , i look closer and see the shorty ford filter which had a quarter inch clearance is resting on top of the vega steering box and punctured a hole ! how the hell could this have happened i'm thinking , new motor mounts couldn't have settled that much ! so i have a friend come we get a jack , run to the parts store right as theyr'e closing and i grab a filter and a couple quarts of oil ! so i place a block of wood under the oil pan and jack the engine up to spin off the punctured filter , right away i notice the motor mount where it bolts to the block the is extremely loose alowing that side of the engine to drop , i go to tighten the bolts and the rear is gone ( bingo that was the bolt i saw fly out ) tightened the front one threw the filter on added oil , let the pressure off the jack and the engine went right back to where it needed to be , plenty of oil filter clearance ! moral of the story , i'm gonna go over every nut and bolt and add locktite where ever i think its needed , things could have been alot worse , luckily it looks like it blew right as we pulled in and didn't lose much oil ! besides my pride and needing to completely clean the underneath of the truck i believe it will be fine !
Sometimes it is great to be lucky! Glad it was not a worse event. I have thought on some of the more criticle nuts and bolts it might be good to add safety wires but that can be a whole lot of work to add them. Still would be some peace of mind.
where was this group when i needed push power lol , a previous pic from sat when a photographer friend contacted me looking for an old car for wedding photos , they thought it would be a good shot to look like it broke down and they were pushing ! oh well , time to take her off the road , ceramic coat the headers , go over nut and bolts , finish up the oil bath aircleaner conversion , and get some upholstery
dirtbag13, When I was little one of my jobs when the old man had just screwed one together was to go over it with a wrench or screwdriver or whatever was required and check every nut, bolt or screw I could find. if I found one loose I tighetened it as much as I could then told the Ol' Man about it. One thing that I do when I finish one is have the wife or a friend check everything that I worked on. Oncwe in a while they finsd something that I missed, it is just a good practice. So you made it home alright? Glad it was nothing major.
been there done that. I now have a good/bad habit of tightening every fastener even if its just for fitment.
Wow, Dirtbag! Is that George Costanza pushing in the foreground at the rear? Great photo, and glad to hear you caught that filter/mount mishap in time.
yes a little later than i had wished , but after i discovered what had happened it was an easy fix , luckily it happened in town and luckily it happened right as i was pulling in , i was worried i had lost all oil and not noticed but upon checking the dipstick it was right at add so i believe everything is fine , i put the new filter on after tightening the motor mount added a quart fired her up and brought her home , i will be going over all the bolts , i believe i will put some locktite on the motor mount ones as i know i really tightened them good !
lol , i never noticed that until now haha , didn't even know the wedding group my friend was the photographer and asked if i could provide my roadster , they all seemed to like it , it was kinda an eye opener that not everyone is a car guy as the groom was in it asking where the clutch was and i explained its an automatic and he replied looking at the 18 inch lokar floor shift ( so this is just for looks then ? )
Make sure you use the correct fasteners for the job and correct washers. Also make sure everything is aligned correctly, as you don't want things coming loose in the future.
Every winter I spend a day going through my hot rods checking critical fastners on the steering, suspension, brakes, engine, driveline, etc... I seldom find anything loose but it gives me peace of mind when I'm tooling down the road...
A few years back I had a buddy ask me if I use Locktite when I'm working on my vehicles. I said "of course I do". Then he asked me if I ever go back and check to make sure all the nuts/bolts are still tight. Again I said "of course". Then he asked me why I wasted money on Locktite? I said 'what do you mean?" He said that after the Locktite is set up you don't want to go back and check the torque because if you move the nut you've broken the bond and you might as well have not used it at all. I'm not a professional mechanic so I can't say for sure if this is true but, it sounds logical. Doc
Shit fallin' off cars.... I used to see things falling off stock cars during races. Bolts, hood pins, who knows what else. It pays to make things tight and when in doubt, loctite it. Usually a good lockwasher takes care of most fasteners. Bob
The Jalopy Journal
