I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

[bbbad2dabone]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

Blew up an air compressor last month.

[The Chief]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

Thats pretty much how we got our 1st gas mower. My dads business partner did much the same and was going to through the thing in the dumpster but my dad grabbed it and bought it home. We managed to get the case welded up and through my dads contacts in the mower trade manged to get all the parts to rebuild it. I remember i was about 15 and we built it on the kitchen floor. When it came time to put the piston in he cut a bean tin up and wraped a metal coat hanger round it to make a piston ring clamp. This was the 1st time i had ever seen my dad work on a motor, i always thought he had no intrest. The mower worked like a champ and is still going strong today even though its no longer in our possesion.

As for blowing things up, i did a chainsaw when i forgot to add 2 stroke oil, a roto tiller when i decided to tweek the motor (well it was on its way out) numerous mopeds bought for small change then tweeked (its amazing those things will run on WD40) and a nitro engine when i decided that pure nitro was the way forward

Oh and i almost forgot the BIG ONE, a $30k power amp on lone to the company i work for that decided to go bang in a big way. We are talking about a shower of sparks 4' tall and a hole in the driver pcb the size of a dime. Took almost 2 hours for me to pluck up the courage to go and tell my boss what had happened. We later found ou that the amp had done the same thing before

[Fordplay0621]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

I knew the Rod was knocking in my 79 Pontiac Sunbird cruzing down the Hwy outside of Little Rock AFB. My Buddy looking at me, wondering why I was smiling. He did'nt know I had a Destroked 400 Small Block Chevy waiting to go into it. So I jumped on it until the Damn thing Exploded. Awesome!!!! A trail of smoke 2 miles long and pieces falling out from under the car.

[whiplash]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

I blew up a doll one time.....does that count? :

laughing pretty hard at this one......

[Monster]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

Now that is a funny story !!!
;D

[HillbillySailor]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

I blew an old Briggs & Stratton engine up like that when I was a kid. My dad was famous for hauling home old lawn mowers, motorcycles, and such. When I was 10, I started to earn money by mowing yards...but I had to build my own lawn mower first. Dad wouldn't let me use the family mower. Well, I took a few of Dad's junk mowers and made one good one out of them. Once I got it running, I decided to up the revs by playing with the carb. By the time I wa done, I had that baby singing...for about 15 seconds. ;) I was pushing the mower across the yard to see how it would cut when it threw the rod through the side of the block. It threw it so hard that it jerked the handle right out of my hands. My dad came out of the house laughing his ass off. Turns out he watched me tune it and was surprised it lasted as long as it did. It was a learning esperience. I pulled a motor off another junk mower and countinued on smartly.

A year later, my frined aquired an old Honda Trail 70 motorcycle. It had carb issues, but was otherwise a good bike. We tried fixing the carb, but couldn't get it to work. To us kids the carb looked like a lawn mower carb, so off to the house I go for a carb off of one of the junk Tecumseh mowers dad had laying around. We installed it on the Honda (had to jury rig the throttle) and attempted to start it. When it would start with the kick starter, we attepmted to push start it. When it started to run, the carb caught fire! Thank God we were near a dirt lot. We took handfuls of dirt to put it out. My friend bought a used Honda carb from somebody and it fixed the problem. How in the hell I survived childhood with some of the crap I did is a wonder...

[Spencer]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

Back in high school, my best friend and I rigged a leaf blower onto a self-propelled mower. Our theory was it would act like a supercharger. It was pretty dumb, but we were broke and wanted to wrench on something.

[HoosierGTA]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

I've also bown a few lawn tractor engines (not on purpose ) and the 305 Ihad in the family wagon at the time. But when it went it was nothing. Was driving along to work and it started losing power than a small clunk clunk and that was it . think a cap let go on the down stroke and the rod blocked the crank from spinning any more.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

My friend did that with a 307.

[HoosierGTA]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

First motor that I blew was a 400 sbc it got down two quarts of oil .Bought it used and I didn't seem to be smoking.Anyway the lifters never rattled just a faint knock started.I shut it off immediately checked and filled the oil (since it poblably had only been in for 2-3 months ) and hoped it would go away,it didn't. In'91 you could buy good sbcs for 150 bucks so I decided to see how long it would last.2 days. Man when it let go ,it shot rod out the side of the block and oil pan ,you could hear things richocet of the interstate and the floorboard then that cloud of smoke and then silence.I coasted to the end of the next off ramp.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

I wish I had some pics to show you guys. We have had a rash of air compressor issues on out haul trucks at work lately. The compressors are v-twins liquid cooled and engine oil pressure fed. They are gear driven off the front of a 2500hp 16cyl diesel. When the compressor goes bad it simply destroys eveything. All that was left of the last one was a crankshaft spinning around and a cylinder hanging from the hose on each side. The block was completely gone and of course engine oil was spraying everywhere.

We also had a truck that was smoking from one side of the exhaust (same 16cly diesel). Turned out it was missing the heads off three valves on one cylinder. You couldn't even tell it was missing when it was running. You wouldn't belive the destruction when things go bad in one of these engines. And its huge dollars to fix.

That's the truth!

[RacerRick]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

I blew up a 318 one with a 350hp nitrous shot. It was stock 79 318 with low miles, except for a torquer intake and Crane ignition box.

Got it into the 12's on a 250hp shot in the dart. Decided to go all out so I borrowed my friends big shot plate, jets, and solinoids, and let her eat. Good thing I had a built 340 waiting in the wings to replace it.

The block cracked in a V from each main bolt up the middle and the crank left the engine before the 60 ft mark. Straight down - into the centerlink and K-member, and through the trans case. Smashed teh passenger side exhaust pipe and muffler and put a dent into the rear end housing as I went over it. The front wheels sudden tried to go in different directions and the car stopped pretty fast.

Was kind of cool getting out of the car to see the mother of all oildowns, and my crank and rods, with some pistons, and the mains still attached, sitting in the middle of the track. The track officials were not amused and were prying pieces of engine out of the track surface for a half hour.

[Budro35]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

Just remember..............PAYBACKS.............I know how to mess with your inventory........ ;D ;D

[Lobucrod]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

I blew up a doll one time.....does that count? :

Oh...........This one has got me turned upside down laughing ;D ;D

Only you Lobucrod..............only you..............go back to sleep ???

So am I the reason for your new avitar??? Have you clicked your refresh button in the last few days??? :D

[Budro35]

Re: I blew up my lawn mower! Did you ever blow up anything unusual?

I blew up a doll one time.....does that count? :

Oh...........This one has got me turned upside down laughing ;D ;D

Only you Lobucrod..............only you..............go back to sleep ???