Engine Blow-Ups

[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.

[rob love]

I was cruising at 60 mph in my M151a2 when suddenly everything started to shake and the transmission jumped out of gear. I pulled over, uncertain what had happened. Everything seemed OK, so I took off slowly and headed to the shop, which fortunately was only about 4 miles away.

Once in the shop, I started to look for what happened, thinking it was in the transmission. That was when I noticed that the flywheel would kind of flop around in the bellhousing. I dropped the pan to find that the crankshaft had broken just after the #4 cylinder, but had broken in such a way that the front part of the crank was still pushing the back half of the crank. With only one bearing supporting the back half, it was a little rough though.

M151 engines came out quickly....I spent the next 45 minutes pulling the pack, caught a ride home from one of the guys, and returned with another engine (I had plenty, I bought 30 of the mutts for salvage), and had it out of the shop by lunch.