Blog 4: Catastrophic Failure

Those who follow this blog will know that a buddy of mine and I spent almost every Friday last winter pulling, rebuilding and re-installing the engine in a Dodge Durango.  This was the happy result...

We test drove it and it was beautiful.  Sounded good... ran good... perfect.

Then my buddy went on vacation for a week so the SUV sat in his garage.  Upon his return he drove it to the car wash, cleaned it up and was heading home something started to knock... then get louder.... then a big bang.... then some smoke.... then he was on fire at the side of the road..... then he called me and we towed it back to his place.

That was 6 months ago.  Today we pulled the engine again to see if we could salvage it.... I don't think that we can.  Have a look.....

First, there is this little hole on one side......

Then there is this bigger hole on the other side......

Then there are all these pieces in the oil pan......

Then four of the pistons and connecting rods look like this......

So after inspection, we still don't really know what happened but it looks like one of the connecting rods was cracked (We replaced one of the rods when we rebuilt it but did not really look at the others) and broke and then broke the ones beside it and then they broke those beside them, etc.  In any case, she is toast.  Pistons are split and laying all over the place.  The bottom of two cylinders are broken off and we found a piston wrist pin in the oil pan.

The sad part is that it was running so nice!!!!   Well I guess the really sad part is that we spend all winter on it and only drove it about 20 kms.

The good news is that we now have an open bay in the shop.  Anyone want to hire us???????   :)