Worse day ever...

Dac · Post by **Dac** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 8:19 pm

I was over at my friends place real late last night, i needed up just sleeping over there. Got up this morning with a very clear plain...
I was going to hop on the elite and do a nice 25 mile ride, i was going to head out to ArtFX and pick up my speedometer stickers i have been talking about for so long...

Then i was going to head to a gas station, get a dollar or two in gas, then head over to "Brunke's small engines" and pick up a clutch and a few motor mounting built for my new go kart...

Head home, call my friends, when they are on there way i was going to throw the go kart together, and trow a hand full of tools in my elite set. all of us where going to run down the road to a dirt track where they would ride the gokart while i took care of the speedometers. Then play it from there...

Heres what happened....
Left my friends house, made it about 2 miles and started to hear this ungodly noise coming from the motor, some sort of rattling, the top speed was like 40mph, so i rode out to my house, it died as i was pulling into my back yard. Tore it all apart to find this...

Look! No top ring!
Its gone! completely! Its no where to be found!

the top of the piston and the head.

So, i took the cylinder to a friend of mine who did a quick hone with some red neck tools. I had another piston i was going to use, didn't look that bad. totally usable.
So i put together everything, put the cylinder on along with the head, went to put in the builds. one of them was fighting me the hole time, it didnt wanna go in no matter what i did. well i went to take it out and thats when this happened...

So now im at a total lost of words. i have no clue what to do.
Today sucked...

dr.ona · Post by **dr.ona** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 8:41 pm

That sucks!
Will an easyout work?

chevyguyjay · Post by **chevyguyjay** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:53 pm

dam.....F*ck that sucks! could of been worse i guess.

Bear45-70 · Post by **Bear45-70** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 10:32 pm

Too lean, then the piston top got hot on the exhaust port side and melted down into the top ring, stuck the ring and then the ring broke up causing all the ding marks in the head and the top of the piston. Then the ring pieces exited out the exhaust port. You can probably find them in the muffler. You better make sure all the melted aluminum is off the cylinder walls or you will screw the next piston too. Honing won't remove it, you need to acid it out.

In 1971 I cut a 428 CJ in half when the piston broke and the HD rod took out the opposite piston, then both rods cut the block in half. The only thing holding the two block halves together was the crank and the heads. Amazingly Ford replaced the motor under warranty.

Kenny_McCormic · Post by **Kenny_McCormic** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:42 pm

Easy out., BE VERY * CAREFUL when drilling the hole so you dont get metal in your bottom end!

mousewheels · Post by **mousewheels** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 4:37 am

Tough break - no pun intended. Kind of cool in its own way, that your ring went out the exhaust with little other damage vs some other worst case scenario. But that broken head bolt is no fun...

Spend some time and think about your next step, The way your bolt got tight on the *way in* then froze with enough force to break makes me think 'If that easy out breaks, what's your next option?'.

1) You could drill the bolt out now and re-tap.
2) A good welder may be able to remove the bolt now as well as if the easy out breaks, but talk to him first, might be cheaper sooner than later...

I've had bolt/thread failures like yours. It starts with a bolt that's really stuck on removal, takes more force than the others. On backing out the bolt, it never gets light/finger tight, its draggy all the way out.

If I take that bolt and try to put it into a nice clean thread, it does not want to screw in finger tight. When I inspect the bolt threads carefully, its got aluminum packed in the thread somewhere.

So all the way out, that extra torque it took was the bolt leaving behind damaged threads. Its smooshing the thread peaks and packing them into a wider root. When I try to thread the bolt back in again the bolt torque increasingly gets higher, as there is extra friction built up every turn. Now taking a new or undamaged used bolt and put it in that hole, it also will no longer run in 'finger tight'

Two things I now do here:
1) If I get a bolt like that on removal, throw it away and use a new one (or run it through a metric die to clean it out). If I try to re-use it its going to cause problems - and don't put it in a different hole! (done that!)

2) Chase the threads with a tap

Kenny_McCormic · Post by **Kenny_McCormic** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:05 am

You could drill and heli coil.

eclypse · Post by **eclypse** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:21 am

I got one! Toss that sucker out and buy another motor.

* man.. thats gota truely suck.

hmm.. How about using a shorter bolt? Obviously short enough to be tight before it hits the broken bolt?

*, pull it out and take it in and have some expert fit it up like new.

Bear45-70 · Post by **Bear45-70** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 12:15 pm

eclypse wrote:I got one! Toss that sucker out and buy another motor. * man.. thats gota truely suck.

hmm.. How about using a shorter bolt? Obviously short enough to be tight before it hits the broken bolt?

*, pull it out and take it in and have some expert fit it up like new.

If he is gonna pull the motor out, then he can have the broken stud EDMed out of the hole. Not cheap, but it saves the crankcase.

MySpree · Post by **MySpree** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 12:25 pm

happend to me more times then can count, but i was always able to drill a small hole in the middle, and use an easyout to get the rest out.

DorkoElite303 · Post by **DorkoElite303** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 9:19 pm

I agree! Throw it out! Send me your clutch cover! LOL...j/k

I say retap it...

Dac · Post by **Dac** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 10:01 pm

DorkoElite303 wrote:I agree! Throw it out! Send me your clutch cover! LOL...j/k

I say retap it...

what?this thing?

Dac · Post by **Dac** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 10:16 pm

back to topic...

the motor...

The motor now...

(notice is gone)

so was was going to put a different cylinder i had on, got everything on and in place just to find out the extra head bolts i have are too short.
I also found out today that the reason for the missing top ring is because my oil pump went out.
AND the biggest problem of them all, well looking over all the broken and trash parts i have i realized that im f***ing broke. So, im not sure what im doing from here. I have to get some new head bolts, or maybe ill do studs. seems to me those would be cheaper then honda stuff anyway. And i need an oil pump plug. Since thats $15 compared to god knows how much for a honda oil injector. But its like, even after all that, im basically out of good parts.

looks like this elite is going to sit for a while.

Kenny_McCormic · Post by **Kenny_McCormic** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:18 pm

Plug it, stud it and throw a cheap dremeled out kit on it.

PimpinSpree · Post by **PimpinSpree** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 12:45 am

was it a stock bore??