OK, my abbreviated story on just what happened to the first motor in my GT6;
I was going to tow it about 460 miles from Oklahoma City to San Antonio
where I would be for about 3 months. I figured this would be a good chance
to get some work done on the car without my wife complaining about how much
time I spend working on things. I put the car on a tow dolly (i.e. only
front wheels off the ground), hooked it behind a U-Haul truck, after making
sure the car was in neutral, and well secured on the tow dolly and away I
went. Any of you who have had the pleasure of driving the interstate
highway system in the US know how much construction and bad road conditions
are out there, well, I didn't see where I had gone wrong until I arrived in
San Antonio and saw a puddle of oil on the tow dolly. The damage was pretty
extensive - scratch 1 motor and transmission (there was a hole on each side
of the block where connecting rods had made a hasty exit, and the
transmission had destroyed both synchros, the input and lay shafts, and
third gear was missing about half it's teeth). Needless to say, I was in
for some interesting surprises. I was able to get a used transmission from
Nigel at Spit-Bits for a very reasonable price (it technically wasn't
rebuilt, but he did inspect and said he replaced anything that looked bad
bearing wise). The engine was another story, and I have yet to get any
straight answer from the company I bought it from - how do you compression
check and leakdown check a motor that's so tight due to frozen rings that it
is barely able to turn over with a starter, let alone by hand. BTW, my woes
all started because I didn't disconnect the drive shaft before using a tow
dolly - I have always used a full trailer when transporting cars, and have
never had to worry about this, and no, the truck was too loud to have
noticed when the con rods departed my motor.
OK, feel better now that I 'fessed up?
BTW, anyone have some leads or info/advice on machine work for increasing
the life of these motors, or race prepping it (I probably won't race it
...for a while yet, but since the engine is at the machine shop for
balancing and blueprinting, I may as well get the lower end done right.
Dave Korzun
'69 GT6+
-----Original Message-----
From: RICHARD.JACKSON@NENE.AC.UK <RICHARD.JACKSON@NENE.AC.UK>
To: unicorn7 <unicorn7@mail.icnet.net>
Cc: M. W. Jordan, Jr. <mw_jordan@mindspring.com>; Triumphs
<triumphs@autox.team.net>; RICHARD.JACKSON@NENE.AC.UK
<RICHARD.JACKSON@NENE.AC.UK>
Date: Wednesday, July 08, 1998 3:27 AM
Subject: Re: TR3A Low Oil Pressure (long)
>
>>Having already replaced the original motor in my GT-6+ due to a cracked
>>block (don't bother asking how it got cracked, it's a bit embarrassing)
I'll
>
>Arr, come on, you can't say that, and not tell us, we've all done stupid
things
>at some time or another, my main one was buying a Herald for the girlfriend
9
>years ago, that's what got me into these damn things!!! :-) Or was it
>replacing the air filter's whilst there was a washer in one of them, or
fitting
>a new diff and forgetting to prime the pinion bearing first(that didn't
last
>long), or.................you get the picture!!! :-)
>
>Cheers
>
>Rich
>
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