Spectacular Breakdowns

[Eshrules]

I had the timing belt tensioner securing bolt go on holiday, whilst doing considerable speed in the outside lane, thankfully the engine died instantly.

[NickPicks]

In 1995, I overtook a lorry in my Lancia Delta HF Turbo, and as I was pulling back to my side of the road, there was a bang from the nearside rear wheel, then a juddering noise and feel from the same wheel. I thought "Oh, blown a tyre", and got pulled in, got out expecting to see that bits of tyre had shredded the wheel arch, but no obvious damage, just a flat tyre.

When I looked underneath, I saw lots of bent suspension arms and a cracked alloy wheel.

I'd run over a cat's eye, which was made of aluminium (about 6" round and 2" deep). the front tyre must have flipped it up from its hole, so the back whell hit it right on the inner rim. That buckled the wheel inwards, then as it came round, the wheel hit the trailing arm-hub connection, bent that off, which then let the wheel move back and forwards and bounce off the wheel arch, bending all the other suspension arms.

All in all, it cost £600 in suspension parts, wheel and tyre, a day for me to repair, then a whole year to get the council to pay out for it. The £10 I paid for uninsured losses recovery / legal protection certainly paid for itself that year!

The cat's eyes were all loose along that section. As the aluminium oxidises, the glue/bitumen used to stick them into the road had just stayed stuck to the oxide.

I was impressed that with that much damage to the rear suspension, the car handled well, braking in a straight line and let me stay in full control of it.

[NickPicks]

In my old Hillman Imp, the temperature gauge didn't work.

Whilst driving up the M3, I managed to get an indicated speed of 100 on the speedo. A mile later, there was a pop, then a great plume of white from the rear of the car.

I pushed the car about half a mile into Fleete services, then tried topping up the water in the radiator. After 4 litres, I noticed that as I poured water in, it came out of the exhaust pipe.

After we took the cylinder head off, we found that 2 of the cylinder walls had holes about 1/4 inch in them.

When we replaced the cylinder block, we also replaced the water temperature sender unit.

[paul b]

Had a 2000 Fiat Scudo 1.9 diesel van.

Was somewhere in Stockport at about 4pm on a Friday aftenoon, when I noticed a horrible screeching noise from the engine bay (it sounded like a firework, being in the cockpit).

I pulled over, left the engine running, propped the bonnet up, and milliseconds later I saw the fan belt snap right before my eyes, and then knocked the timing out and the engine seized.

Towed it home, was ever so lucky, there was no hole the engine block, but everything was bent.

I overhauled the engine, new valves and everything, the van was back in action for work at 8am the following Monday.

Got to say, seeing the timing destroyed before your eyes certainly makes your heart miss a beat or three!

Paul