Bang!!!

Karl

Karl

Well-known member
After 1800 miles of trouble free motoring in the 1934 . We where less than 50 miles from home and travelling at a steady 45mph when there was a loud bang from up front followed by a cloud of steam . I pulled immediately to the side of the road and turned off the engine which was still running. The photo shows what greeted me on lifting the hood.

The generator mounting on the valve chamber cover had sheared clean through. The generator had tilted forward and the bang was the fan chewing through the radiator and the top of the coil. We finished the trip on a trailer.

I will need to have a radiator re-core done as the radiator is toast.. I will also need a new Valve Chamber cover , Coil and fan ( fortunately which I have except perhaps for the fan) Hopefully no other damage but time will tell. All in in all not a great day!
 

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Karl said:
After 1800 miles of trouble free motoring in the 1934 . We where less than 50 miles from home and travelling at a steady 45mph when there was a loud bang from up front followed by a cloud of steam . I pulled immediately to the side of the road and turned off the engine which was still running. The photo shows what greeted me on lifting the hood.

The generator mounting on the valve chamber cover had sheared clean through. The generator had tilted forward and the bang was the fan chewing through the radiator and the top of the coil. We finished the trip on a trailer.

I will need to have a radiator re-core done as the radiator is toast.. I will also need a new Valve Chamber cover , Coil and fan ( fortunately which I have except perhaps for the fan) Hopefully no other damage but time will tell. All in in all not a great day!
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So in this case, the fan hit the s#!+. Sorry for your loss. Could have been worse and nobody got hurt so it was a better day than for some people. Good luck finding the parts too.
 
Do you remember how high above the manifold your gen was. A fan belt slightly too long requiring the gen to be at the limit of adjustment can cause such breakage.
 
OUCH! Sorry to hear about this unfortunate incident. :-( When assembling my flathead my mechanic warned about aluminum intake manifolds. He said he recommends cast-iron ones because they never break at the generator mount. He said he's seen this a couple of times and it's never pretty.
 
jimTN said:
Do you remember how high above the manifold your gen was. A fan belt slightly too long requiring the gen to be at the limit of adjustment can cause such breakage.
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This makes sense. I'll be checking mine when I get back home.
 
Admiral said:
OUCH! Sorry to hear about this unfortunate incident. :-( When assembling my flathead my mechanic warned about aluminum intake manifolds. He said he recommends cast-iron ones because they never break at the generator mount. He said he's seen this a couple of times and it's never pretty.
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Was low down . In fact was as low as it would go and generator was resting on the valve cover. Fan belt still had right amount of tension. -Karl
 
Karl,
Thanks for posting your experience. Sounds like we should periodically check the aluminum generator mounts for cracks. Maybe overkill, but a retaining strap could be fabricated to at least keep the fan/generator somewhat centered if it breaks loose.
 
When I was a kid, we would consider ourselves lucky to find a radiator that good at the junk yard. A little solder and some Stop-Leak and back on the road!
 
It is this reason I keep the fan belt only as tight as needed to turn the water pumps and generator on my 33. It has probably 1 1/2 inches slack but it keeps the battery charged and never overheats and the belt has never come off.
I'm very sorry to see this but as others said--it always could be worse. You didn't throw a blade through the hood or at someone.
 
Karl said:
I will need to have a radiator re-core done as the radiator is toast..
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I had my original 32 V8 radiator re-cored by an outfit out here in Ohio - not super happy about the job (and it cost me $900). They didn't get the top-tank exactly right, had to take it back and have them re-do their work (grill didn't fit right). They fixed it, but it shouldn't have been an issue in the first place and it still isn't as nice as I had hoped.

I'd highly recommend that you send it to somebody who really knows these early radiators - and has the necessary alignment tools/jigs to get the top-tank exactly where it needs to be.

You might consider Brassworks:

http://www.thebrassworks.net/
 
Wow ,what a disaster Karl ,I recently re commissioned my 35 and noticed a crack developing beside the bolt ,cant see it clear here but removed that sucker right away for a cast iron one .will be fitting a bracket on my 34 aluminium one now.The stress on the bolt could be a factor over tightening by previous people who worked on the car .Make sure they get the radiator height right when they rescore important for grill fit .Ted
 

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The fact that the generator was resting on the manifold is not a good thing. The resulting vibration surely contributed to the failure. Like having an engine bolt to the frame without any cushion.
 
It's easy to overtighten the old wide belts...they are happy as noted above with a lot less tension than narrow ones. I do suspect that a lot of failures actually have their roots in roughly handled engines long ago...that part is very vulnerable to damage on engines jostled around in junkyards years ago or in the back of a pickup truck headed for Hershey now. The projecting stud is one of several natural snags on flatheads, like the fuel fitting on Strombergs, just waiting for someone to roll the engine over.
 
More big bang pictures . Look at what is left of Skips coil (and it still ran)
 

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