At 3:21 AM 6/25/97 +0000, Scott Gardner wrote:
When you
>hear of somebody missing a shift and "airmailing a piston through the
>hood", is this just a figure of speech? What is the physical damage
>to an engine when somebody "blows a piston"?
Well, for a pretty good "blowing a piston" story, read on. Back in 85,
about a year after I bought the 71 GT, I was driving out to visit my mother
with my two young daughters in the car. I had noticed that, at certain
freeway speeds, the engine would make a funny, vibrating noise, and then
when you backed off on the accelerator, it would stop. It began making its
noise, then as I let off the accelerator, something went bang, bang, bang,
and the oil pressure began falling. I pulled over to the side of the
freeway, turned off the engine, opened the car door and looked underneath.
In about 10 seconds, the car lost its remaining 3 (approximate) quarts of
oil. I decided it wasn't going anywhere, and I had better figure out what
to do next. Luckily a Highway Patrolman came by and called for a tow truck
for me. Had it towed to my local British Mechanic, who later told me that
a rod had broken through the oil gallery, and it and the piston ended up
putting several holes in the oil pan. They saved the old broken oil pan to
show me, and there was a whole lot of debris that had been broken off in
there. Maybe it was a poor rebuild by the DPO, and I didn't have the
understanding of mechanics I have now, but I still don't quite know exactly
why it happened. MGB's can do spectacularly bad things with their engines
too! Nina
P.S. Had the block rebuilt, and its run great ever since.
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