Engine Blow-Ups

[motto (RIP)]

The airline I worked for had Hobart Ground Power Units (GPUs) to provide electrical power to the aircraft when on the ground for any length of time. They were powered by six cylinder Cummins diesels that ran at fairly high revs for many hours at a time.
One night when we were about to go home the steady, constant drone of the GPU just outside the hangar suddenly developed an accompanying knocking sound that rapidly got louder until there was a very loud bang followed by silence.
We went down to have a look and couldn't help noticing the large pool of oil underneath the unit with a liberal amount of engine fragments scattered about in it. We released the hand brake and rolled the vehicle aside to have a closer look at the debris and were surprised to see a con-rod bent into a U shape laying there. The puzzling part was that the gudgeon pin was still in-situ, through the small end. I guess that the piston must have completely broken up.

David

[Keith Webb]

I've seen some flathead V8s and also a couple of Chevs with this problem. I can remember going to look at a Ford blitz once and commenting to the owner it looked like a good buy for what he paid - then he said go and have a look underneath the engine... sure enough it was totally wrecked.

Here's a good example of a failure on a 216 engine:

[Richard Farrant]

David,
Thinking on about your generator story, the army had some new trailer mounted gen sets with automatic monitoring systems. This particular one was about 30Kva and powered by a Perkins V8 with the inline injection pump in the valley. It came in to workshops with the pump broken and laying at a strange angle, seems a rod had detached from the piston and gone straight through the cylinder wall in to the pump. Investigations found that this pump did not have a mechanical governer, but it had an electronic one, and it failed. So much for technology.

The more I think, the more instances I can now recollect.

[Lynn Eades]

Richard, those motors we good at throwing the front pulley off.

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by Lynn Eades

Richard, those motors we good at throwing the front pulley off.

Never come across that problem on those engines. Had a Perkins 6.354 throw No.6 rod through the side once, crank was seized and unable to remove the engine from the torque convertor as it could not be turned. It was in a loading shovel and not easy to get the sump off as I recall.

[Lynn Eades]

I recall 3 of them doing it.
I was working for Heatons transport. Apart from a few TM Bedfords, the fleet was all Leylands.

[Barry Churcher]

Just last week we had a lady tow her car in for repair. She indicated that the oil light had been flashing the day before but the car ran okay. She told her husband and he told her to take the van to work the next day. Because the van is harder on fuel she drove the Toyota to work in Toronto with the flashing oil light. Driving along at 120 km per hour it started to loose power and then there was sudden shaking vibration and it quit. She said something hot and smoking fell out on the road. Investigation revealed a grapefruit sized hole in the front of the block. When we put the car on the hoist we could see the same size hole on the rear and the broken starter hanging by the battery cable. The plastic shrouding under the car had a big melted hole where a chunk of the connecting rod had gone through.She figured we had done something wrong on the last oil change but when I showed her the oil change sticker with the date and mileage she got a little sheepish.
Checking the oil seemed a strange concept to her and something to be left for us wrench monkeys at the garage.