Fred's Extreme Rod-Enhanced PCV Setup

[Fred]

This thread is a story of woe and destruction. It is here to share the tale of how my number two rod escaped captivity and exited, stage left, just like the Pink Panther! It made its escape at around 7000+ RPM leaving a trail of destruction and some very Positive Crankcase Ventilation (boost enhanced). It went with a loud bang, and then a ting tang tong of pieces of metal bouncing off of other pieces of metal. Smoke poured from around the bonnet/hood and for a second I thought the ute might have been on fire. My thoughts were with all of the things inside the ute that I wanted to get out (expensive cameras and laptops etc). Fortunately, the smoke quickly faded as the exhaust parts the oil was splattered over cooled. I opened the bonnet and looked briefly around for a problem. The first thing I noticed was the dipstick out of place, close to the head. Then I looked lower and saw the edge of the sump, windage tray, and 10mm thick block brace, shaped like a banana just in front of the lhs engine mount. From the concave side of the banana came copious amounts of oil, and coolant, onto the road. A large puddle formed as I started looking closer. On top of the engine mount sat the rod cap, distorted and bashed around. On top of that sat the wavey part of the (lower) oil ring. And on top of that sat the small end of the rod. Inside the fist sized hole and resting on the top plate of my fancy sump, was the piston pin. Below on top of the left sump wing sat several chunks of cast iron and one tiny piece of aluminium, a piece of piston, the only sign that there was ever a piston in there. 200 meters back down the motorway I found a bent snapped rod bolt, and a snapped bashed oil squirter bolt, just laying there, like nothing had happened. The trail of oil extended all the way back there, and further still.

We towed the ute home, with another diesel ute, and inspected the carnage a little closer. The oddly placed dipstick, when pulled upon, was found to not be attached to the block anymore. Instead, a piece of block came up out of the hole on the end of the now snapped tube.

Matt/GURLB8 was kind enough to donate an F8-DOHC block to the FreeEMS cause and help get the ute back under its own power again!

The next post will contain photographs of the carnage. I'll also update this thread with more gory pictures as I pull apart the old setup ready to replace the block.

Fred.

[Fred]

first batch of photos here, saving post spot.

[Fred]

video here, saving post spot.

[Fred]

[FE3-323]

bump for updates,

carnage pictures/video Please!!!

[lundgren420]

Seriously i want to see some pictures or video of this.

[Fred]

I got the rod out of it the other day and it's banana like

We then trailered it to a friends place where I can work on it. After pulling the rod out, I could crank it, and with the gear ratios as they are, and the high torque jap starter, I could crank it up a decent gradient!

Today I started tearing it apart, and got a lot done. I found a piece of piston in the sump, and unfortunately it indicates to me that the head may have seen better days... I may end up using it anyway, depending on how much hassle using one of my other heads is, and how fucked this one is. It's only a "get it back on the road" fix anyway...

It's weird to see the engine bay so empty...

I'm going to lighten and clearance a few brakets while I have it apart too.

When I pulled the turbo oil feed line off, I drained a little oil from it, and it had metal flakes in it... not good.

More disassembly tomorrow, more photos being taken, lots of cleaning/modding soon!

Fred.