Projects from hell….

[Randy V]

Larry mentioned a Fluidamper. It has no viscoelastic rubber to fail.

While I've never personally exerienced a failure of a Fluidamper Balancer - I know of one Dyno shop that would not allow any Fluidamper equipped engines on their dyno. Evidently there had been at least two failures there. I changed out the Fluidamper for a TCI balancer on my GT40 engine when I dynoed it there.
Do they make a Fluidamper with integral pulley?

 

[Neil]

While I've never personally exerienced a failure of a Fluidamper Balancer - I know of one Dyno shop that would not allow any Fluidamper equipped engines on their dyno. Evidently there had been at least two failures there. I changed out the Fluidamper for a TCI balancer on my GT40 engine when I dynoed it there.
Do they make a Fluidamper with integral pulley?

That I don't know.

 

[Ryan L]

I cant remember where I saw it, could have been one of the doggy cars I bought a while back.
similar story, failure of the Harmonic Balancer.

Previous owner had used a couple of dry wall screws on it to keep it all in place.

 

[Cliff Beer]

I understand the pain.

I changed the front brake pads and rotors on my 2002 Chevy suburban (bought new, now 255,000 miles) as the pads were low and the rotors looked worn. The brakes immediately squeaked on the test drive. I thought "what the %&#@%" (in French also). Changed the pads to a different set of pads. Still squeaked. Changed the rotors for a new set. Still squeaked. Pretty annoyed at this point.

A week or so later my 15yo son and I are driving down the road and my son says "hey dad, I think the squeak is from the back." Sure enough, the rear pads had picked that precise moment to hit the squeak warning/tang...the very moment I changed the front pads....to the precise moment/yard/nanosecond...leaving me wondering if I've lost all my mechanical skills...

Sometime you just have to laugh at yourself.

 

[Hector]

I went through hell getting my a/c to work right, and in West Texas like Randy said , driving withput A/C in the summer is not an option, at least during the day.

first it was the dirty dingo a/c compressor kit, i went through three of them and could not stop the belt from squeaking , The alignment was never right, I tried several modifications without success. By the way, the owner was a complete ass, did not even give me a discount when I bought another one. I finally got an ICT billet kit and works flawlessly .

Then a refrigerant leak I could not find, I thought it was a hose, but after much trouble shooting and painful hose replacements , (there is just no room inside the footboy) had to be done upside down with your feet up in the air , no exaggeration) I found out it was a pinched O ring . By the way I found out that vintage air offers free crimping for local customers in San Antonio TX, I wish I would have known that before doing all the crimping myself.

Then the a/c kept working on and off, randomly, I thought it was a bad compressor and replaced it. removed the dash and checked all the electrical connections and switches , nothing , this was was driving me absolutely crazy, finally my son diagnosed the problem, a faulty relay that would work on and off, of course if you tested it when it was working you could not figure it out. at some point the relay got wet and water got inside it.

That was an absolute nightmare. We all go through those at some point. I can laugh about it now.

 

[Mark H.]

Joel. How about a steel disk (1/8” thick?) the diameter of the damper and pulley. This disk firmly attached to the center crank area of the damper with clearance away from the pulley portion of the damper. Have slotted openings, same arc as the damper pulley in this disk so to allow the pulley hub to move within these slotted screw openings, maybe 1/2” or so long? The screws in the pulley hub would have to bottom in blind holes in the pulley and stand proud of the disk to allow independent pulley damper movement from the crank attached disk portion. Maybe two plates, both sides. Basically a slotted plate to allow movement, but hold it all together if a catastrophic failure were to happen. Can’t think this would upset engine balance if the slots and screws were all equally spaced? Just a thought. Love the build.

 

[Alex]

My worst experience was the transmission in my 65 cobra (astro t5).

I hit a bump in the road, cracked the rear of the case (s10 housing for the midshift palcement). When I got it home and removed the tranny I also found the snout of the input shaft bearing retainer was completely broken off and bouncing around the input shaft (most likely unrelated to hitting the bump).

Put on a new rear housing (reproduction unit), input shaft bearing retainer (Ford Racing). Also had the driveshaft rebalanced because it was apparently really off.

Put it back together, car works great for the first 2 or 3 minutes, but when it would heat up, the clutch would now stick (i.e., i'd push the clutch pedal in, let off it but about half-way up the pedal would freeze and the clutch would not release ... if i kicked the clutched pedal two or three times then it would suddenly release, and by release, I mean release and send the car flying forward!).

I figured something was messed up in my clutch/flywheel because everything worked before hitting the bump, so I replaced both. And same problem.

Then I figured something internal in the transmission, so I had a shop tear it apart and they found some galling on the input shaft so they fixed it. And same problem.

Over the next year I had the transmission in/out of the car at least 50 times checking and measuring everything over and over, but nothing.

Then I read a post about greasing the input bearing retainer shaft. Tried it, car worked fine for 2 drives. Then the problem came back. Tried it again, worked fine for 2 drives and problem came back.

So then I put on a new input bearing retainer shaft and it's been fine for the last 5 years.

I never did figure out what the problem was, best I could figure is the one i bought was out of spec enough that with some heat part tolerances would change enough to cause the throwout bearing to seize up on it (although there was no unusual wear marks on the either the TOB or shaft retainer)