Who likes mechanical carnage

[espo]

Who else has ever twisted the eye out of the drive shaft yoke on the transmission end while banging a second gear shift? Couldn't even hear the radio. Talk about lucky. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

37 minutes ago, espo said:

 Couldn't even hear the radio. Talk about lucky...

Miley Cyrus on, eh?

[johnyrotten]

2 hours ago, espo said:

Who else has ever twisted the eye out of the drive shaft yoke on the transmission end while banging a second gear shift? Couldn't even hear the radio. Talk about lucky. 

Torque will do that. 

[bobss396]

14 hours ago, espo said:

Who else has ever twisted the eye out of the drive shaft yoke on the transmission end while banging a second gear shift? Couldn't even hear the radio. Talk about lucky. 

I was leading the feature at Islip in 1983 with my big block Nova. Came out of turn 2, pedal to the metal. 

I had the loud noise from hell under the car and it felt like neutral. I finished poorly. The blow proof Lakewood u-joint blew, taking out the driveshaft yoke. I had to conjure up a new shaft for the next race.

[JollySipper]

11 hours ago, johnyrotten said:

Torque will do that. 

Horsepower is how hard you hit the wall, torque is how far you carry it with you...........

[johnyrotten]

2 hours ago, bobss396 said:

I was leading the feature at Islip in 1983 with my big block Nova. Came out of turn 2, pedal to the metal. 

I had the loud noise from hell under the car and it felt like neutral. I finished poorly. The blow proof Lakewood u-joint blew, taking out the driveshaft yoke. I had to conjure up a new shaft for the next race.

I did something similar being an idiot on the street,  going into a corner(40 or so,city street) went from 3rd to second under boost, (holset on a vr6 vw) and inside cv had enough. Instant neutral. I was an idiot as a kid, learned lessons the hard way.

Edited December 2, 2024 by johnyrotten
Spelling

[Ace-Garageguy]

36 minutes ago, johnyrotten said:

...I was an idiot as a kid, learned lessons the hard way.

Yup, those are the ones that stick with us, and if we have any brains, eventually lead to something approaching wisdom.

I pity the poor blobs who never push the limits in life.

[johnyrotten]

26 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Yup, those are the ones that stick with us, and if we have any brains, eventually lead to something approaching wisdom.

I pity the poor blobs who never push the limits in life.

I no longer drive like an jerk, and leave the fast stuff for the track. Too expensive when tickets/insurance start stacking up. 

[espo]

9 hours ago, bobss396 said:

I was leading the feature at Islip in 1983 with my big block Nova. Came out of turn 2, pedal to the metal. 

I had the loud noise from hell under the car and it felt like neutral. I finished poorly. The blow proof Lakewood u-joint blew, taking out the driveshaft yoke. I had to conjure up a new shaft for the next race.

 

21 hours ago, johnyrotten said:

Torque will do that. 

Sounds like you guys understand the forces required to do the mentioned damage. Now the other part of the story. The car I was driving was nothing on the order of the cars it sounds like you have been involved with. The time frame was summer of 1965, and my car was a 1957 Ford Mainliner two door. Think of the cover on the box of the Revell kit of the '57 Ford. The 312 cu in engine was for the most part pretty stock with only an upgraded Holly, D series heads with a light polish. These heads were said to be meant for the factory dual quad set up. The Ford factory hot cam of the '57 era. The transmission was the HD 3 speed with Overdrive and a Hurst shifter. Don't recall the rear end ratio, but it was fairly low. On the street with a slight downhill sloop, I was living in the mountains in SoCal at the time. Didn't lift when shifting into second and only tapped the clutch and made a clean no grinding or slipping shift into second when it all hit the fan. For those who are aware of the possibilities of what could, but didn't happen, I think will agree I was luckier than I had any right to be. All ancient history now. The Yoke that I twisted was only available through the Ford dealer at that time and that left the car parked for 2 weeks before the dealer could get me the part.  

[johnyrotten]

18 minutes ago, espo said:

 

Sounds like you guys understand the forces required to do the mentioned damage. Now the other part of the story. The car I was driving was nothing on the order of the cars it sounds like you have been involved with. The time frame was summer of 1965, and my car was a 1957 Ford Mainliner two door. Think of the cover on the box of the Revell kit of the '57 Ford. The 312 cu in engine was for the most part pretty stock with only an upgraded Holly, D series heads with a light polish. These heads were said to be meant for the factory dual quad set up. The Ford factory hot cam of the '57 era. The transmission was the HD 3 speed with Overdrive and a Hurst shifter. Don't recall the rear end ratio, but it was fairly low. On the street with a slight downhill sloop, I was living in the mountains in SoCal at the time. Didn't lift when shifting into second and only tapped the clutch and made a clean no grinding or slipping shift into second when it all hit the fan. For those who are aware of the possibilities of what could, but didn't happen, I think will agree I was luckier than I had any right to be. All ancient history now. The Yoke that I twisted was only available through the Ford dealer at that time and that left the car parked for 2 weeks before the dealer could get me the part.  

I been around racecars almost all my life, grew up drag racing,  both my hometown track and traveling the east coast. I've gotten to see all kinds of damage, breakage, abuse ect. Being a welder, I understand the forces, stresses, strains that things undergo. Not an expert by any means, but know more than average. That yoke seen a ton of torque, your clutch didn't slip, so it found the weak point. It probably got interesting pretty quickly. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

And that, boys and girls, is why you run driveshaft straps if you do any hard driving with a lot of torque.

[bobss396]

13 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

And that, boys and girls, is why you run driveshaft straps if you do any hard driving with a lot of torque.

On stock cars, we all had them in place. So the shaft just banged off the floor pan. As soon as you heard it, you know what just happened.

[bobss396]

I was out with my '59 Ford I'm 2018. I was heading to the gym and had my foot in it. The Muncie M20 I had in it was not in peak condition. It popped out of gear at 5000 RPMs on the 2-3 shift. BANG!!

I was glad the engine sounded good.. limped home in 4th gear... slowly 🐌... like 20 in 4th gear and it was LOUD. I didn't dare try any other gear as I might have been stuck.

We took it out, opened the side cover and looked inside. Broken main gear, 3rd was a hot mess, the countershaft was bad. I dropped it off to a guy we know, he went through the whole thing and I had it back a few days later. 

New Italian gear set, new rebuild parts and some good used parts. Dodged an expensive bullet with that one. I wasn't sure it could be fixed.

[espo]

22 hours ago, johnyrotten said:

I been around racecars almost all my life, grew up drag racing,  both my hometown track and traveling the east coast. I've gotten to see all kinds of damage, breakage, abuse ect. Being a welder, I understand the forces, stresses, strains that things undergo. Not an expert by any means, but know more than average. That yoke seen a ton of torque, your clutch didn't slip, so it found the weak point. It probably got interesting pretty quickly. 

I was the third owner of this car, and I sort of warmed it up a little but never took it to the drags or even thought of doing so. I was young and dumb and doing as many young men who are young and dumb have been known to do. As I said I was luckier than I had any right to be that the drive shaft didn't dig into the blacktop and act like a pogo stick. I never thought the engine had enough torque to rip the eye out of the yoke as that had never happened to me on any car I had owned before or since including a few that would have been far more capable of such. 

[johnyrotten]

1 hour ago, espo said:

I was the third owner of this car, and I sort of warmed it up a little but never took it to the drags or even thought of doing so. I was young and dumb and doing as many young men who are young and dumb have been known to do. As I said I was luckier than I had any right to be that the drive shaft didn't dig into the blacktop and act like a pogo stick. I never thought the engine had enough torque to rip the eye out of the yoke as that had never happened to me on any car I had owned before or since including a few that would have been far more capable of such. 

There's always that chance, as I've learned with anything I've built,  that you will find  the weak link. On a nutshell, that's what hot rodding, and drag racing is. Make it fast, see what breaks, improve,  repeat. That yoke may have just used up its service life, or you happened to find just the right combination to make it fail. I used to work in industrial maintenance,  and failure modes are valuable information for adjusting p.m. schedules and increasing up time. 

[Bills72sj]

The closest I have come to catastrophic failure was replacing a 400 Pontiac with a mildly built 455. The TH400 handled it just fine. The 10-bolt GM rear was not up to the frequent barking 2nd gear with 295/50-15s. Eventually, I got what sounded like a U-point going out, as the sound was that frequency. Changed both U-joints. The sound was still there. Pulled the rear end cover to discover a chunk missing from the pinion that encompassed 1.5 teeth (tooth?). The piece fell down into the only empty pocket in the housing. Amazingly, no shrapnel whatsoever. Cobbled together another '66 A-body 10 bolt rear with too long '71 axles. Had to use 2-1/2" wide front drums to cover the 2" shoes on the rear brakes. The car met its demise due to car fire not to long after. (not related to rear end issues).

[Goose1957]

Fortunate enough to never break anything on my '57 Chevy while drag racing, but I did shear off a pinion shaft on the rear while trying a burnout. Didn't have the slapper bars on the axle tubes yet and the rear twisted when I dumped the clutch. Luckily, I was in front of my garage, so I inspected the damage, pushed the car back into the garage, and closed the door for another day.

Made this trophy for the local slot car drag strip for our AA/FA class. The winner's names were recorded on the trophy each week for all of posterity. It's topped by a nitromethane piston/rod remains I bought off of ebay years ago. I thought it was appropriate for the class.

Jeff

[johnyrotten]

2 hours ago, Goose1957 said:

Fortunate enough to never break anything on my '57 Chevy while drag racing, but I did shear off a pinion shaft on the rear while trying a burnout. Didn't have the slapper bars on the axle tubes yet and the rear twisted when I dumped the clutch. Luckily, I was in front of my garage, so I inspected the damage, pushed the car back into the garage, and closed the door for another day.

Made this trophy for the local slot car drag strip for our AA/FA class. The winner's names were recorded on the trophy each week for all of posterity. It's topped by a nitromethane piston/rod remains I bought off of ebay years ago. I thought it was appropriate for the class.

Jeff

Wheel hop kills parts. Awesome trophy,  and that's a cool little slot car. I've gotta check that stuff out sometime. 

[bobss396]

My brother's buddy built a stout 1957 Chevy while in HS, in 1975 or 1976. 

454, dual quad tunnel ram, M22 rock crusher. BUT... he kept the stock-ish rear. They popped like party balloons.

I'm not sure what happened to the car, the last time I saw it, there was a Dana 60 rear on the garage floor next to it.

I started out my Ford, I had a custom driveshaft made for it, but kept it 1310 for the u-joints since it matched the stock 3.56 rear.

I should have bit the bullet and upgraded to at least a 1330 when I ordered the locker rear for it. This is why I don't do hoke shots or burnouts with it.