[AMC-List] Primitive form of cylinder de-activation

[Matt Haas <mhaas@xxxxxxx>]

Younger brother takes a 1984 Dodge Ramcharger 4x4 as partial trade on a 
Ford van he was selling. Said Ramcharger was an Arizona truck up until 
about March of this year and is very nice inside and out (other than 
some faded paint). At some point either on the drive up from Arizona or 
shortly after it ended up in Cincinnati, the previous owner ran it out 
of oil. My older brother ended up buying it from my younger brother to 
repair as my oldest nephew's first car and now it's at my house 'cause I 
have all the cool toys you need to R&R an engine.

The engine developed a pretty loud noise (this happened before my 
younger brother got it) which sounded too loud and heavy to be valve 
train but wasn't quite the deep hammering sound you get from a rod knock 
and had a bunch of large metal chunks in the oil. The engine was yanked 
out Saturday and partially torn down today and I'll have to say I'm 
pretty impressed with the damage.

Basically, it threw a rod but instead of windowing the block, the rod 
turned 90 degrees and bent into a U shape in to the cylinder on the 
other side of the block. This process also caused a large chunk of the 
bottom of that cylinder (the one the rod bent into) to be knocked off 
and a couple of small pieces of piston to end up in the valley above the 
cam shaft. The crank journal  ended up not being gouged but is now 
visibly oval shaped. I guess my brother now has an excuse to replace the 
318 (or is that a 275.25?) with a 360. I also now can say that I know 
what a connecting rod bouncing around inside an engine sounds like.

Luckily, no AMC's were harmed in this entire fiasco.

Matt
-- 
mhaas@xxxxxxx
Cincinnati, OH
http://www.mattsoldcars.com
1967 Rambler American wagon
1968 Rambler American sedan
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