- Joined
- 3 May 2004
- Posts
- 17,742
- Location
- Kapitalist Republik of Surrey
Not the normal title you'd expect to see in Motors, I admit! Lets have a chat about what cars and parts you've killed. We can talk about the cars that have literally dropped dead because they were useless, but the heroic stories of destruction are more exciting 
Mine:
Car 1 - Ford Prefect
I didn't manage to annihilate too much in my first car, despite driving it like a complete tool. The first thing to go was a wheel bearing. I'd seen it needed replacing and I'd ordered a new one. Typically, while I was driving it decided to let go. I hear a sudden rumble under the car, the steering went curiously loose and before I could do anything there was a huge bang as the front wheel went under the car and smashed in the passenger footwell. Apart from that it was pretty reliable until I changed the engine from a 39hp 997cc to a full fat 145hp crossflow with a close-ratio box and that was when stuff started to break.
First on the list, predictably, was the diff. At university I had a couple of mates in the car and decided it would be funny to launch out a parking space. Dumped the clutch. Instead of the expected tyre scream there was an almighty grating noise from the back and the sound of a lot of teeth being stripped. Towtruck home.
The next failure was the gearbox. I was in Bristol, 130 miles away from home and the gear lever decided to jam in neutral and I was stuck in the then dodgy area of Brizzol. The car got towed to some scabby gearbox place who ripped me off and a few weeks later the box did the same, this time jamming in 3rd at a standstill on a steep hill. The engine had plenty to get the car going, but the clutch became a cloud of noxious smoke in the process. After a fight they replaced everything.
Then I managed to kill the diff again. On the motorway the rear end suddenly sounded like a road drill and I actually thought it was going to explode. All the hard starts must have taken their toll because once I got it apart (after being trailered home again), the pins that secured the spider gears had ovalled their holes and one of them drifted out. Spinning round, this 25mm diameter hardened steel pin had literally shredded the insides of the diff!
Next, it was wheel-change time. I found some classic alloy wheels and slapped them straight on without thinking about changing the wheel nuts. Naturally, they weren't the right ones and worked loose when I had a mate in the car and the wheel flew off, this time bouncing down a steep hill and my mate ran down the road after it!
The final incident was brake failure in Kingston. I'd replaced the seals in my brake calipers and one of them broke down and let the fluid out. That meant no brakes and could have happened at any point. LUCKILY I was sat at some traffic lights when it happened, but it was at a major cross junction and it still amazes me today how lucky I was. The replacement seals never failed and I know that because the calipers are currently on my Anglia.
Car 2 - Ford Anglia
The second car inherited the engine and box from the first car after it was written off. It was getting tired by that point but I still ragged it silly. Eventually, one of the unleaded inserts dropped out the head and trashed the inside of one of the bores. It looked quite a mess but it was actually ok mechanically and once a new insert was in I bolted it all back up and it ran perfectly for many more miles.
The bit I've not mentioned is the dynamo. These were on all classics before alternators were used. They are fine on slow low revving engines, but as soon as you add revs and vibrations they die quite quickly and can be the bain of any classic owner's motoring. I was running up and down the M4 between London and Bath and was killing a dynamo nearly every other week. My Friday lunchtime ritual was often to go down to the stores and get a set of brushes from one of the washing machine motors, cut them down and fit them in my dynamo. This would go on for a few weeks until the bearings went, at which point I'd get it replaced under the warranty! I always intended to swap to an alternator and the final straw was driving back from Rockingham when the dynamo mount actually fatigued through and the dynamo came off on the motorway. How it didn't fly around and trash everything under the bonnet I don't know.
Later, another tired engine in the car started to burp back through the Webers quite a lot. I was starting the car at the builder's merchants when the carbs spat a load of fuel all over the inner wing, it caught fire and the car nearly burned to the ground! It was just a small flame until it burned through the fuel line between the two carbs and it literally fireballed. VERY scary. Typically, the damn bonnet latch jammed and I couldn't get the bonnet up to put it out, but a passing lorry driver threw me down a powder fire extinguisher that I pointed into the engine bay and hoped. It made a complete mess but ultimately saved the car
The most recent was the big bottom-end failure after I'd rebuilt the engine. This was after the above incident and I was to debut it at an event. I went straight out onto the motorway without running it in, went a bit too fast and seized it solid
Less than 50 miles on these bearings:
I still have this car.
Car 3 - Ford Pop
This was a stopgap car while I did some restoration work on the Anglia. I got a bit carried away and started tuning the hell out of the vintage sidevalve. This is a very old design engine with no oil filter, a very spindly crank with a long stroke and vertical oil journals. This basically means it's prone to oil starvation and it's easy to kill at revs! The first one let go on Westerham Hill, a steep hill and I was hammering it up there. A ring or something went and the entire North Kent Down behind me was filled with a thick choking white oil smoke
In fact, now I remember, I totally underestimated how weak the axles were on these old cars. The first time I ever took the car out I let the clutch up a bit suddenly with some revs and it smashed the hell out of the diff about 2 miles away from my flat! Once I got it apart I could see why - the diff was tiny and the pinion gear was literally no bigger than about 30mm in diameter. Someone gave me a whole new axle for free and I had it couriered to my old work. The guy hadn't emptied it of oil and it dumped black gear oil all over the inside of this delivery truck and the driver wasn't best pleased. He was threatening to bring it into the office and stick it on my desk
The second tuned engine lasted a mere 2000 miles but it was killer. High compression head, flow work, high lift cam, light flywheel, performance intake and exhaust and it went like stink for an engine designed before WW2. I took it racing one weekend, then next weekend a lot of high speed motorway work from London to Southampton to Birmingham to a show up there. It would reach 80mph at this point, flat out in 3rd gear and wouldn't rev any higher, but during the show it started knocking and sounded like death. I figured it was getting silly so I replaced it with a completely standard lump and took it easy from then.
That's pretty much all my fun and games. The hotrod has been fairly sedate in comparison and nothing major, in fact nothing, has broken. I wrecked the first gearbox on my dad's hotrod when he took it drag racing but he went on to kill another two and multiple diffs so I wasn't in trouble over that one
I've now said way too much - so over to you guys
Mine:
Car 1 - Ford Prefect
I didn't manage to annihilate too much in my first car, despite driving it like a complete tool. The first thing to go was a wheel bearing. I'd seen it needed replacing and I'd ordered a new one. Typically, while I was driving it decided to let go. I hear a sudden rumble under the car, the steering went curiously loose and before I could do anything there was a huge bang as the front wheel went under the car and smashed in the passenger footwell. Apart from that it was pretty reliable until I changed the engine from a 39hp 997cc to a full fat 145hp crossflow with a close-ratio box and that was when stuff started to break.
First on the list, predictably, was the diff. At university I had a couple of mates in the car and decided it would be funny to launch out a parking space. Dumped the clutch. Instead of the expected tyre scream there was an almighty grating noise from the back and the sound of a lot of teeth being stripped. Towtruck home.
The next failure was the gearbox. I was in Bristol, 130 miles away from home and the gear lever decided to jam in neutral and I was stuck in the then dodgy area of Brizzol. The car got towed to some scabby gearbox place who ripped me off and a few weeks later the box did the same, this time jamming in 3rd at a standstill on a steep hill. The engine had plenty to get the car going, but the clutch became a cloud of noxious smoke in the process. After a fight they replaced everything.
Then I managed to kill the diff again. On the motorway the rear end suddenly sounded like a road drill and I actually thought it was going to explode. All the hard starts must have taken their toll because once I got it apart (after being trailered home again), the pins that secured the spider gears had ovalled their holes and one of them drifted out. Spinning round, this 25mm diameter hardened steel pin had literally shredded the insides of the diff!
Next, it was wheel-change time. I found some classic alloy wheels and slapped them straight on without thinking about changing the wheel nuts. Naturally, they weren't the right ones and worked loose when I had a mate in the car and the wheel flew off, this time bouncing down a steep hill and my mate ran down the road after it!
The final incident was brake failure in Kingston. I'd replaced the seals in my brake calipers and one of them broke down and let the fluid out. That meant no brakes and could have happened at any point. LUCKILY I was sat at some traffic lights when it happened, but it was at a major cross junction and it still amazes me today how lucky I was. The replacement seals never failed and I know that because the calipers are currently on my Anglia.
Car 2 - Ford Anglia
The second car inherited the engine and box from the first car after it was written off. It was getting tired by that point but I still ragged it silly. Eventually, one of the unleaded inserts dropped out the head and trashed the inside of one of the bores. It looked quite a mess but it was actually ok mechanically and once a new insert was in I bolted it all back up and it ran perfectly for many more miles.
The bit I've not mentioned is the dynamo. These were on all classics before alternators were used. They are fine on slow low revving engines, but as soon as you add revs and vibrations they die quite quickly and can be the bain of any classic owner's motoring. I was running up and down the M4 between London and Bath and was killing a dynamo nearly every other week. My Friday lunchtime ritual was often to go down to the stores and get a set of brushes from one of the washing machine motors, cut them down and fit them in my dynamo. This would go on for a few weeks until the bearings went, at which point I'd get it replaced under the warranty! I always intended to swap to an alternator and the final straw was driving back from Rockingham when the dynamo mount actually fatigued through and the dynamo came off on the motorway. How it didn't fly around and trash everything under the bonnet I don't know.
Later, another tired engine in the car started to burp back through the Webers quite a lot. I was starting the car at the builder's merchants when the carbs spat a load of fuel all over the inner wing, it caught fire and the car nearly burned to the ground! It was just a small flame until it burned through the fuel line between the two carbs and it literally fireballed. VERY scary. Typically, the damn bonnet latch jammed and I couldn't get the bonnet up to put it out, but a passing lorry driver threw me down a powder fire extinguisher that I pointed into the engine bay and hoped. It made a complete mess but ultimately saved the car
The most recent was the big bottom-end failure after I'd rebuilt the engine. This was after the above incident and I was to debut it at an event. I went straight out onto the motorway without running it in, went a bit too fast and seized it solid
Less than 50 miles on these bearings:
I still have this car.
Car 3 - Ford Pop
This was a stopgap car while I did some restoration work on the Anglia. I got a bit carried away and started tuning the hell out of the vintage sidevalve. This is a very old design engine with no oil filter, a very spindly crank with a long stroke and vertical oil journals. This basically means it's prone to oil starvation and it's easy to kill at revs! The first one let go on Westerham Hill, a steep hill and I was hammering it up there. A ring or something went and the entire North Kent Down behind me was filled with a thick choking white oil smoke
In fact, now I remember, I totally underestimated how weak the axles were on these old cars. The first time I ever took the car out I let the clutch up a bit suddenly with some revs and it smashed the hell out of the diff about 2 miles away from my flat! Once I got it apart I could see why - the diff was tiny and the pinion gear was literally no bigger than about 30mm in diameter. Someone gave me a whole new axle for free and I had it couriered to my old work. The guy hadn't emptied it of oil and it dumped black gear oil all over the inside of this delivery truck and the driver wasn't best pleased. He was threatening to bring it into the office and stick it on my desk
The second tuned engine lasted a mere 2000 miles but it was killer. High compression head, flow work, high lift cam, light flywheel, performance intake and exhaust and it went like stink for an engine designed before WW2. I took it racing one weekend, then next weekend a lot of high speed motorway work from London to Southampton to Birmingham to a show up there. It would reach 80mph at this point, flat out in 3rd gear and wouldn't rev any higher, but during the show it started knocking and sounded like death. I figured it was getting silly so I replaced it with a completely standard lump and took it easy from then.
That's pretty much all my fun and games. The hotrod has been fairly sedate in comparison and nothing major, in fact nothing, has broken. I wrecked the first gearbox on my dad's hotrod when he took it drag racing but he went on to kill another two and multiple diffs so I wasn't in trouble over that one
I've now said way too much - so over to you guys
