What have you broken while out hot rodding your car?

[BSB67]

After modifying the 383 in my 67 Satellite that I bought new, I broke driveline components on a regular basis before replacing them with better parts. 3 Mopar clutches, busted u joints, twisted driveshaft, spread the yoke in the 8 3/4, and broke the 1st/2nd shift fork in a 23 spline 833. I have never damaged an engine, even running that 383 to 7000 rpms on shifts and going through the traps in the quarter at 7500-8000 rpms.

383s are really hard to break.

 

[Budnicks]

How about this?

View attachment 1629398

Ok, that wasn't me.

Not hot-rodding at the time, but I pulled away from a stoplight one night in my '70 GTX and discovered one of the lines for my air shocks had developed a hole. There I sat - on my L60s. I had to get a ride home, grab some skinny tires, and swap them out on Main St. Then I limped it home. How embarrassing.

Mancini Racing use to use that photo in advertising a few times
I had it saved & used here a few times too

cool shot, from the hay days

 

[RemCharger]

Had a 383 with indy heads 275@50 cam that went many many years and rounds , finally split a rod in the burn out box.. almost salvageable but I think the real reason it let go was an opposite wrist pin was sliding out against the cylinder. Pressed pins

The next one( same L2293s stock crank rods block) but max ported 286s also went a looong time until the last run it completely dumped the front half of the reciprocating assembly at about 3/4 track. So the back half of the motor was still spinning 7000 and everything else on the motor was stopped. Blew the whole waterpump housing off the block. It was ugly.
That's the big ones, otherwise it was the usual 16 yr old smashing transmissions and differentials doing 5 grand neutral drops and whatnot.

 

[kiwigtx]

Land speed record in a B-Body.....

 

[Kern Dog]

Uhhh, I'm well aware of what the term means.
Yes, the rod broke just above the big end. The piston came up and slammed into the head. rotated a few degrees and stayed at about 1/4" below TDC, bending the valves in cyl #2. The big end stayed on the crank journal. It went from 3800 rpms to BAM really quick. I was not in a safe place to leave the car and didn't have a number for a towing service. It still ran so I drove over to my mother's place tucked in a residential neighborhood.

846 miles on a fresh rebuild.

Remember these pistons? Reproduction six pack slugs.

I hang it in the shop so my new engine can learn by example what can happen.

 

[Kern Dog]

In the late 80s with this car I was on my way to work:

....I tried to kick the tail out in a curve where the road was wet. I drifted too far to the right and hit a curb, bending the right rear wheel and axle housing. I couldn't be out of work long so I took the day off, borrowed a truck and went junkyarding for a replacement axle. The original axle was a 2.73 open, there were no 3.42 or 3.73 posi axles in the junkyards I went to. I settled for a 3.08 one legger just to get the car moving again. Hey, at least it was a slight step up in off the line pep.

 

[BLK 68 R/T]

My first “hot rod” was a 1972 ford Torino with a 2 bbl 351 Cleveland. My buddy and me took it on a lead-footed roadtrip one day and on the way home the crankshaft snapped the front snout off just behind the front main bearing.

 

[Cojohnso1]

I broke a motor mount dumping clutch with my high-school '66 GTO. I noticed right away that shifter was moving from side to side depending on torque of engine. So on the street I've been pretty lucky.

At the drag strip? As the Italian guys say. "Forget about it!"

 

[Scott Engelhardt]

71 340 4spd Demon, broke the pinion. I had been driving it hard all day Saturday. That night I parked it on a slope. Sunday am I started backing up the incline and pop went the pinion.

 

[OneWheelPeel]

I used to spend every weekend at Brotherhood Raceway Park in the port of LA area, once while racing my Pontiac started throwing its belt and I couldn’t figure it out. One of, or maybe the last time it happened, I was doing my burn out and staging when I realized the belt was gone again. I said F it and made the run anyway and that was the last time for that poor abused motor, started getting crazy blow by which turned out to be a cracked piston and rings. I’m assuming running a little hot, or maybe a lot hot while racing did it. You can see it right at the beginning of this vid as well later in the vid. It was a 1978 Grand Prix.

 

[33 IMP]

My car that this was in wouldn't run the number any more. I'm not sure why.......

 

[RemCharger]

My car that this was in wouldn't run the number any more. I'm not sure why.......

View attachment 1737553

View attachment 1737554

Well whatever it was, was bad enough to cut your converter in half..

 

[Fran Blacker]

Mine is boringgg had wire come off my carter electric fuel pump. Was at a NeHOA meet. Couple of guys stopped to see if I needed help. Just needed them to hand me roll of black tape to hold wire on. Two years ago replaced the tape while putting fresh fuel hoses on fuel pump.

 

[Kern Dog]

While I was making my video movies in the late 90s, I broke stuff on the stunt cars.
I rolled a jump car when the right side punched through the deck of the jump ramp, bending the right lower control arm. Upon landing, the car steered really weird and did a soft clockwise roll onto the roof. The 318 was still running upside down!
I bent a leaf spring when the car hit the ground after an other jump. The leaf was bent at 90 degrees and it dug into the dirt. I had to jack the car up and put it on jack stands, then put the floor jack under the bent leaf and LIFT it to bend it enough to move the car. If cordless grinders were around then I would have just cut it off.
Another time after a jump, the distributor cap hit the firewall and bent the rotor tip off, causing a big misfire.

 

[33 IMP]

I used to spend every weekend at Brotherhood Raceway Park in the port of LA area, once while racing my Pontiac started throwing its belt and I couldn’t figure it out. One of, or maybe the last time it happened, I was doing my burn out and staging when I realized the belt was gone again. I said F it and made the run anyway and that was the last time for that poor abused motor, started getting crazy blow by which turned out to be a cracked piston and rings. I’m assuming running a little hot, or maybe a lot hot while racing did it. You can see it right at the beginning of this vid as well later in the vid. It was a 1978 Grand Prix.

I raced a little bit at Brotherhood. I had a Vega with a 327/350/8 3/4 combo. I couldn't understand why my 2.02 head 327 solid cam 327 wouldn't pull past 6 grand. Oh well.
A few days later I got challenged on the street (this had to be a minimum of thirty years ago, I was younger and stupider then) by a guy with a 396 El Camino. I was beating him (I think) when my motor went Kaboom! and quit. Towed it home and diagnosed. Cast 327 piston separated, rod put four lovely grooves into the water jacket.
The interesting part; a few weeks later I did some math to figure out what might have gone wrong. Turns out that the tach I was using was a liar! It wouldn't pull past 6 grand because what I thought was 6 grand was really the high side of 7500. Cast pistons and 7500 rpm don't play well together.

 

[fourgearsavoy]

Broke a few clutch discs until I decided to spend money on a good one. Broke third gear in a couple 23 spline boxes and split a 3-4 slider in a HEMI box. Broke an adjuster screw on a rocker arm once and found all the pieces laying on the head near the rocker pedestal. Had a Holley blue pump fail on the way back from the Nats in Indy. No major engine failures or rear end breakage though.
Gus

 

[HEMIB]

Broke my window & Engine mounts after rolling of a bridge road & into a river lucky the tide was out

 

[bandit67]

I grenaded one motor and a bunch of small driveline stuff thru the years. I have taken out several mailboxes which in turn took out fenders, door, and quarter panels. Replacing drive train parts never bothered me, BUT hated sheet metal stuff way back when.....

 

[JackR]

Yes. I have a long list. And my engine guy has even said “I’ve not seen that before”.

 

[ksurfer2]

I wasn't driving my car, but pulling the car in my enclosed trailer a couple of weeks ago on the way home from the track. Broke an axle on a rural two lane highway in the Middle of nowhere. No shoulders to get even close to off the road. The saga begins at 9:15pm. First tow company I called said they had nothing suitable to carry the trailer until the next day. Second company didn't think it was an issue. Sent out a regular flat bed. That took nearly an hour for them to show up. Once there realized that my trailer would not fit so called for another truck. Second truck shows up at 11:30pm. This one is obviously big enough to carry the trailer, but with the broken axle, we could not back it onto the truck. Unloaded the car from the trailer, and removed the wheel. Now enough ground clearance under the axle to move the trailer. Get it loaded onto the big flatbed, the car goes onto the other flat bed. Finally pull out at 1am. The street I live on is a dead end road that is only one lane wide. The big truck will not be able to make it. We decide to unload in a grocery store parking lot about 10 minutes from the house. Enough ground clearance to pull the trailer SLOWLY. My wife following behind me in the car. Pull down my street at 2:30am. The car is LOUD. I am sure we woke a few neighbors. That was a LONG night and an expensive tow.