Who to blame for 440 Throwing a Rod

[Big_John]

Is it likely that I made a mistake after picking up the car/ made a bad purchase to begin with

Quite possibly. Read on.

is my mechanic the one likely at fault?

No, not at all....

When you looked at the car to buy, did the engine make any rod noise? What did the oil look like when you pulled out the dip stick? What did the coolant look like?

If your mechanic had the car, wouldn't he say "there's an engine noise" if it had one?

Did the car sit without being run for a long time? Did you hammer on the car when you first got it on the highway?

Since the car has forklift damage, that tells me it has a very checkered past... When you looked at the car, how bad did that damage look? Usually, the only time a car gets moved with a fork lift is in a junk yard....

All that said, no one has a crystal ball... You bought the car and when you buy an old car, you have to do your due diligence when you inspect it. Perhaps having someone else more knowledgeable with you the next time might help.

Blaming someone that did some simple work isn't right.

IMHO, **** happens with old cars. It's 57 years old. Sometimes with warning and sometimes without. It's happened to most of us... All is good until there's a bang and a big puddle of oil and coolant.

 

[Triple Pickle]

In the past, I’ve picked up cars from the 60’s that didn’t require total mechanical refurbishing. But, they were only 20 years old. Now, they are nearly 60 years old. If the PO hasn’t already gone through everything then you’ll have too. Not just plugs and an oil change. Engine comes out and on a stand for disassembly and inspection,
along with everything else in the drivetrain. Do you have to do that? No. But, don’t be surprised when you’re broke down with no one to blame but yourself.
A new Chrysler 300 with the biggest engine available is around $56,000 and comes with a warranty. Compare that to what you paid for one 57 years old.

 

[ALRUI]

The old fashioned blame- game, love it.
In the trade we call it the "ever since".
Ever since you changed my brake bulb, my front tire goes flat.
Ever since you changed my coolant, the diff blew up. Can't believe you didn't tell me.
And on and on.

My son tells stories like this every few days. They service XYZ and a few days later the customer is back blaming them for ABC....

 

[cuda hunter]

How does a fork lift damage a gas tank?
No one lifts a car from the rear. Were they pushing the car around with a fork lift?

Are we ever gonna get any pictures here? Would love to see the car and the piston hanging out of the motor.

@Lil_Hoss ?? Still around?

 

[Margos Dezirian]

Sludge can build up in the oil pan and plug the oil pick up screen.
The oil pressure lamp may not work so you won't have any idea.
When I as younger I had this happen with two good running BB MOPAR engines when I started driving them regularly.
I will always pull the pan on an older car I plan to drive from now on.


Uncle Tony @ 10:56

 

[Lil_Hoss]

Apologies for being MIA, posted this thread shortly before beginning the process of moving into a new place. Relieved to hear that its almost impossible for my mechanic to be the root cause of this as I have been going to him for years and we have a great relationship. It was not a conversation I wanted to have in the first place hence the original inquiry. I never got any mention from him of anything unusual about the oil change, he also only has a few techs all of them experienced.

Didn't mention in the original post that when the engine blew the oil swiftly began dumping. Maybe oil was leaking before the rod went flying but my mechanic has yet to do an autopsy. Clarification on the speedo cable sounds: I certainly heard a bang when that cloud of smoke went up but with the cable noise and whistling from the vent window it wasn't immediately obvious my engine had been destroyed and I didn't identify anything off about the engine sounds before it blew up.

In regards to the previous owner I might have been conned but I felt like this was a relatively trustworthy purchase. Originally saw the car listed on ebay from someone with thousands of feedback and 0 negative interactions but there were no bids. Privately reached out and went to look at it to find out that he was a collector with 2 other classic cars in the driveway. He mentioned having just sold another and that he was getting rid of all of them to simplify his projects. It seemed like he more wanted the cars out of his driveway and in the hands of someone with time for them rather than getting the market value but maybe that's just a story he was using. The night that I bought it a tow truck delivered a Triumph Stag, his new project. When I picked up the New Yorker the only car left was the Stag. He mentioned the novelty of driving the car wearing out for him so it might have sat around a month or so at a time but he gave me no reason to believe any long term neglect had taken place.

My understanding is the bottom end of a 440 should be the hardest part of the block for a failure to take place so I thought there might be an obvious reason something like this may have happened. (I have no recourse with the seller so this isn't about trying to sue him but more about learning the right lesson from this whole debacle) Thanks for the help folks

 

[Lil_Hoss]

How does a fork lift damage a gas tank?
No one lifts a car from the rear. Were they pushing the car around with a fork lift?

Are we ever gonna get any pictures here? Would love to see the car and the piston hanging out of the motor.

@Lil_Hoss ?? Still around?

Apologies, this is currently the only picture I have of the tank damage from the ebay listing. Next time I am around the shop I can get some pictures of the piston but I just moved 30 minutes away from where the car is currently lodged

 

[twostick]

I'd be almost willing to bet when you pull the pan off, you will find the oil pick up plugged up with nylon timing gear teeth.

Kevin

 

[66 Monaco 500 365]

Many decades ago I bought a 440 from a storage auction, got it for $40
I pulled it apart and found the rod bolts were stretched more than 0.015" they must have been torqued to more than 75 foot pounds.
If I ran the motor without replacing the rod bolts and torquing them correctly, I'm sure the first time it was revved, it would have "failed" catastrophically.
Just because an engine is "rebuilt" or "Fresh" that doesn't mean it was done correctly, someone without talent can make it a ticking time bomb.
My $.02

 

[Loadrunner]

I can’t see how the mechanic could be to blame. He didn’t touch the internals of the engine.

Not necessarily true*, and whatever it was, he didn't catch it.

These 440’s don’t just toss a rod on a whim.

No way, never even heard of it.

I was driving a 383HP that seized at fairly low RPM once, worn thin bearing shells spun and piled up on each other on one crank journal.

Steam coming out of a valve cover is not a good sign, far from normal, usually a sign of a cracked block.

* You can totally fk an engine up without ever going near the bottom end.

Working at a shop in the 90's, I watched the lead tech, also the owner's son, use abrasive
Roloc disks on an intake manifold gasket swap, I warned him about the abrasives/oil contamination and got told to STFU, me being fresh out of school.

The rig came back on a tow truck soon after, the engine suffered catastrophic failure.

Another case, at the local BMW/Brit car garage, a set of refurb'd heads were put back on a Jag V12, the engine ran about 5 minutes and suffered catastrophic failure. The head shop bead blasted the heads, didn't bother to clean out the oil passages. Shop owner/friend was not happy.

I was taught in 1st year machine shop while in Auto Tech program '88-90 to scrub the H out of head castings that have been bead blasted (don't even do it, it's just for looks), with very hot soapy water, and repeatedly.

Otherwise the hot oil will clean the castings, and bead blasting abrasives will be all over the inside of your block, destroying everything in it's path, the oil, lifter bores, destroying block/crank, cam, etc.

Did the "mechanic" beadblast the inside of your valve covers?

refinished the valve covers

I pray for his sake not.

At any rate, you can't really prove anything.

Don’t waste time trying to find fault it just consumes energy that could be spent on something more fruitful.

Nonsense, you need to tear this motor down and see what happened, take pics.

Don't drive without gauges, especially oil pressure.

 

[Loadrunner]

Just because an engine is "rebuilt" or "Fresh" that doesn't mean it was done correctly, someone without talent can make it a ticking time bomb.

I'd never buy anything with a feshly rebuilt engine, maybe after it has 20k on the clock.

 

[Triple Pickle]

Not necessarily true*, and whatever it was, he didn't catch it.

No way, never even heard of it.

I was driving a 383HP that seized at fairly low RPM once, worn thin bearing shells spun and piled up on each other on one crank journal.

Steam coming out of a valve cover is not a good sign, far from normal, usually a sign of a cracked block.

* You can totally fk an engine up without ever going near the bottom end.

Working at a shop in the 90's, I watched the lead tech, also the owner's son, use abrasive
Roloc disks on an intake manifold gasket swap, I warned him about the abrasives/oil contamination and got told to STFU, me being fresh out of school.

The rig came back on a tow truck soon after, the engine suffered catastrophic failure.

Another case, at the local BMW/Brit car garage, a set of refurb'd heads were put back on a Jag V12, the engine ran about 5 minutes and suffered catastrophic failure. The head shop bead blasted the heads, didn't bother to clean out the oil passages. Shop owner/friend was not happy.

I was taught in 1st year machine shop while in Auto Tech program '88-90 to scrub the H out of head castings that have been bead blasted (don't even do it, it's just for looks), with very hot soapy water, and repeatedly.

Otherwise the hot oil will clean the castings, and bead blasting abrasives will be all over the inside of your block, destroying everything in it's path, the oil, lifter bores, destroying block/crank, cam, etc.

Did the "mechanic" beadblast the inside of your valve covers?



I pray for his sake not.

At any rate, you can't really prove anything.



Nonsense, you need to tear this motor down and see what happened, take pics.

Don't drive without gauges, especially oil pressure.

Any number of wild scenarios can be conjured up that would put the blame on the mechanic.
All we know is what we were told. Which was: he’s a mechanic that this guy felt comfortable with and said he was confident in doing the job.
He changed the oil, plugs, cleaned up some of tin and it was fine when he came and got it.
I can’t imagine the labor bill for that service being very high. Now, had the mechanic tore the engine down and checked every clearance, magnafluxed everything and reassembled it with a clean bill of health? And charged accordingly? Yeah, then he’s probably at fault.
All we can go by is what we’ve been told. More than likely this mechanic done nothing wrong and the engine was a worn out time bomb that’s been ticking a for long time.
No amount of fantastic speculation or tales of uncle Jimmy’s neighbors cousins cat coughing a hairball down the carb of Bobby dales 43 Edsel is going to change that.
Thus is the way of the old car hobby. You buy the ticket, then you take the ride!

 

[Loadrunner]

cleaned up some of tin

Did he beadblast the tin, pretty straightforward question.

 

[Triple Pickle]

Did he beadblast the tin, pretty straightforward question.

That’s what was said. I can only speculate that he removed them first and that they were clean enough to paint and install new gaskets on. And that he had enough sense not to dump abrasives into the engine somehow if that’s what you suggest.
Listen, I’m not playing Perry Mason with you. What I’m saying is this: The chances that 50+ year old car that someone just unloaded on him slung a rod not because it is wore out and who knows what it’s been through but because a decent mechanic did a tune up on it is pretty slim.
But, what the heck, let’s say he purposely sabotaged the engine.
What’s he going to do? Sue him? Who wants to try to prove what happened when?
It entirely possible that my ex-wife went down there an dropped rocks down the carb just for spite because she knows I like that car. Possible but not likely.

 

[CBODY67]

One red flag to me can be the phrase "professionally rebuilt", no matter what was rebuilt. Even with a copy of the invoice, to me, that is NOT a justification to buy the car/part thereof "worryfree". Especially as any warranty the customer would have had generally do not transfer to the new owner.

Just an observation,
CBODY67

 

[Loadrunner]

I've never seen a Mopar ventilate a block and I hung out at the drags a plenty in the old days.

 

[CBODY67]

I remember when the Roloc discs came out and our techs used them to clean intake manifold/cyl head gasket surfaces and such. They were careful to stuff rags into the intake ports and otherwise protect engine parts from any grit which might migrate to places it should not be. Were quite popular! UNTIL GM sent out a TSB saying NOT to use them. Then the shop got a liquid "parts washer" with heat to put the castings into for cleaning . . . major advance still used today.

The 1970 Superbird restoration I was involved in, the car had been media blasted (plastic beads rather than sand). As clean as it was, those little beads were in nooks and crannies inside the body parts where they might not be suspected to have been. My friend vacuumed and vacuumed and vacuumed as much as he could and there were still some left between body panels and such, inside the passenger compartment and such. Obviously ricocheted, I suspect.

CBODY67

 

[Loadrunner]

In this one particular instance, the tech cleaned stubborn intake gasket leftovers from a Sears van with 302 Ford engine, got grit all over the cam/pushrods/lifters/valvetrain, the engine lasted about a week and the van came back on the hook.

Not sure what happened with a warranty situation, the shop was always in denial about something they'd done wrong.

We had a Ford engine delivered by a new/different machine shop in town, trying to pimp their wares.

While the engine was on the stand with salesman still in the shop, I noticed the intake was on backwards, embarrassing.

I was low man on the totem pole so I got to do all the awful jobs in the shop, like endless rear main seals they sold as a panacea for rear main leaks that rarely fixed rear main leaks.

In one instance I was going so buggy from being under engines all day every day that I installed a rear main in backwards in a slant 6 Dart. Boy, you shoulda seen it shooting oil out the back after I fired it up ;[]

They spent a grand of this guy's money (in 1991 dollars) on crazy stuff on a Bronco, wouldn't go up a hill, and it wasn't getting getting better until a NAPA salesman mentioned some unseen fuel filter down on the frame. They changed it and that was it.

I was in the shop and watched the boss snatch the keys from the customer who knew what was up, they were arguing, the owner insisted he come back with cash only so he couldn't cancel a check and reverse the charge.

I could still write a book about this place.

They're still in business.

The old man/wife in office, 2 sons working there, me and Mike, a tech who'd been there a while.

The younger son John Jr. once told me after payroll and overhead, the old man "was clearing $60-70k a month", so he could afford to treat customers like dirt.

He'd say "Find everything wrong you can possibly find - it's your duty as a pro tech - with any car that rolled into the shop "because we'll probably never see that guy again".

 

[Triple Pickle]

So, what you guys are suggesting is that this guy left media in the valve cover after blasting them, and it fell into the engine when he put them back on? He didn’t blow them off or wash them out at all after media blasting them? Or,that he did it without taking them off, and just blew the stuff all over the place?
Or, he had them laying on the fenders while he blasted away with a Harbor Freight hand held job and it went down in the engine?
I’d think he had a cabinet like everyone else who has blasted stuff like this and cleaned the parts properly afterwards.
I’m not defending him but, if the only way to throw a rod is to media blast the valve covers I know a lot of engines that are living on borrowed time.
While we’re telling stories…my Uncle ran a dump truck over the hill backwards so fast one time that the pistons started swapping cylinders and it took off back up the hill! They had to put the wires on the cap backwards to get back to the county garage!

 

[Big_John]

You guys happen to notice that the OP hasn't been back here since March.

You'll probably never know what happened one way or another, so we'll probably never find out what happened.