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Bring Me My Brown Pants


Eric
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Here is an interior shot of what looks like an old tri-five Chevrolet Belair after a clutch explosion. That gas pedal took a hit. I wonder what the driver's foot looked like?

ClutchExplosion.jpg.773c23626ae2f0d5aff9d519e466f929.jpg

 

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This is pictured above as well. It is Don Garlits' dragster during and after a clutch explosion. It cut the car in half. He perfected the rear-engine dragster after this wreck and began racing them instead.

7d87926f32703963f33bbcc000bd84c3.thumb.jpg.a832ac4f4ee24abb8149bd5834989436.jpg

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In the 60's, my neighbor ran a fueler rail.  He ran the first 200 mph at the local strip.  Now he had a wife and kids and his wife demanded he quit due to the risk of life and limb.  Occasionally he would come over to borrow my Oxy Acetylene tanks to cut or weld something, so we met frequently while I was rebuilding cars.

One day he walked into my garage as I was working and proceeded to try to talk me into driving his rail for just one last pass down the strip, before he got rid of everything.

First I was scared.  I thought I was God's gift to driving back then but I had never gotten into actual strip drag racing.  So I didn't know what the particulars were.  I also told him I didn't know the first thing about drag racing a rail and I probably would just wreck it for him.

He said it was no big deal to run it.  He said it was direct drive, so all I had to do when I saw the Green, was to stomp the pedal to the floor and pull all the way back on the shifter.  Then he added, and hang on for the ride.

I couldn't get up the courage to do this for him and I felt bad about it, but I was convinced that if I did it, I would forever regret wrecking his beloved dragster, and I would die!

He and I went into the basement one day to see the Jimmy Blower he was lapping for the engine.  The main room  had shelves all the way around it with trophies, then he showed me the adjacent room also filled with trophies.  I had honestly never seen so many.

Yes, his wife made him quit.

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Don Garlits recently restored to running condition the car that almost killed him. Below is a link to an excellent article on the wreck and the history of the car.

http://www.roadkill.com/big-daddy-don-garlits-restores-swamp-rat-13-the-dragster-that-almost-killed-him/

don-garlits-swamp-rat-13-rebuilt-9.thumb.jpg.ea3d46544486c9dd2a9038f59cd2568c.jpg

 

You can see the restored Swamprat XIII start and run at the end of the video.

 

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My wife had the clutch in my Jeep come apart on the freeway. Engine running and stuck in gear. She was able to pull to the shoulder and kill the engine. 
 

Looked like a bomb hit it when we got it apart. There is a lot of energy stored in that little part when at speed. 

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At first I thought that clutch disk was from another car from a crash or something.  A clutch explosion is a pretty spectacular sight because it's really not a part you would think would explode that violently.  

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2 minutes ago, Maser said:

At first I thought that clutch disk was from another car from a crash or something.  A clutch explosion is a pretty spectacular sight because it's really not a part you would think would explode that violently.  

I saw a car at a junkyard once that had a drive shaft fail at the rear, at high speed. The car was a redneck hotrod: Too much power, indifferent mainantence and poor judgement. Anyway, The driveshaft came through the floor of the car like a scythe. It took out the rear seat completely and knocked the rear of the car's roof upward almost two feet, in the middle. Incredibly, the driver and passenger were not injured.

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5 hours ago, Eric said:

The NHRA says that a Top Fuel dragster burns and average of 15 gallons of fuel on a run. The average ET is around 4.5 seconds, for Top Ful dragsters. I think that the averages ETs have dropped since that figure was published (People have run in the neighborhood of 3.6 seconds), but that number will do to make a point. That means that they are consuming around 3.3 gallons of nitromethane fuel per second. That is mindboggling.

So, that's like 60 gpm (gallons per mile);

 

:whistling:

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Funny how for the longest time I thought a clutch explosion was simply caused by a n00b to racing who doesn't know how to "race shift", but apparently according to Google it's caused by being in too low of a gear.  It's from the internet so it has to be right, right?  ;)

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26 minutes ago, Maser said:

Funny how for the longest time I thought a clutch explosion was simply caused by a n00b to racing who doesn't know how to "race shift", but apparently according to Google it's caused by being in too low of a gear.  It's from the internet so it has to be right, right?  ;)

It’s all about the rpms creating centrifugal force on that disk... or the flywheel as someone mentioned. 

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14 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

It’s all about the rpms creating centrifugal force on that disk... or the flywheel as someone mentioned. 

The transmission was a two-speed automatic transmission with some sort of manual clutch instead of a torque converter.

In Don Garlits' catastrophic accident, the sprague gear came apart as he released the clutch. This spun the gear drum backwards at three times the engine speed. The drum was approaching 30,000 RPM when it came apart. The transmission was a type that was completely fluid-filled, so the pressure was transmitted in every direction through the fluid without any loss in energy. It wasn't an explosion in the classic sense, but it sure had the force of one. It sawed the car in half and took off half of his right foot.

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6 hours ago, Eric said:

The NHRA says that a Top Fuel dragster burns and average of 15 gallons of fuel on a run. The average ET is around 4.5 seconds, for Top Ful dragsters. I think that the averages ETs have dropped since that figure was published (People have run in the neighborhood of 3.6 seconds), but that number will do to make a point. That means that they are consuming around 3.3 gallons of nitromethane fuel per second. That is mindboggling.

Haven’t race lengths been shortened for some of the super quick classes? Maybe to 1000 feet instead of 1/4 mile?

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1 minute ago, railfancwb said:

Haven’t race lengths been shortened for some of the super quick classes? Maybe to 1000 feet instead of 1/4 mile?

I haven't followed drag racing in years. If that has happened, it was after I stopped watching the races.

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1 hour ago, railfancwb said:

It’s all about the rpms creating centrifugal force on that disk... or the flywheel as someone mentioned. 

 

I had quite a bit of work done to my old Honda Civic before I put her in storage until my sons are old enough to learn to drive.  One of the things done was to machine the flywheel surface for the new clutch.  I know it's bad and all, but I was impressed with how much of a mirror finish the flywheel had when it was taken out.  Guess I rode that old clutch a little too much during my dirt road outings near my hometown.  :D

Edited by Maser
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2 hours ago, Eric said:

I saw a car at a junkyard once that had a drive shaft fail at the rear, at high speed. The car was a redneck hotrod: Too much power, indifferent mainantence and poor judgement. Anyway, The driveshaft came through the floor of the car like a scythe. It took out the rear seat completely and knocked the rear of the car's roof upward almost two feet, in the middle. Incredibly, the driver and passenger were not injured.

One bright sunny day I left work early.  Driving down a four lane divided highway with no other cars, I came upon a Jeep slowly rotating on its top.

The driver said he was driving along and suddenly the vehicle did a leap into the air.  Turns out the front U joint on the drive axel failed and he pole vaulted a small distance.

Many things can happen with a vehicle, the remarkable thing is that we experience so few of them.

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8 minutes ago, janice6 said:

One bright sunny day I left work early.  Driving down a four lane divided highway with no other cars, I came upon a Jeep slowly rotating on its top.

The driver said he was driving along and suddenly the vehicle did a leap into the air.  Turns out the front U joint on the drive axel failed and he pole vaulted a small distance.

Many things can happen with a vehicle, the remarkable thing is that we experience so few of them.

 

I know it's not what happened in this movie scene, but it's what I instantly thought of reading your post! :D

AbandonedGiftedGoitered-size_restricted.

Edited by Maser
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I was driving my old '78 Ramcharger one day in Houston. I turned onto Ella BLVD off of Loop 610. A couple hundred feet later, I heard a loud thump and the engine started freewheeling. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw my rear driveshaft fly down the road behind me, nearly hitting an old couple in a car behind me. I ran back and got my driveshaft, locked my front hubs, shifted into 4X4 High and drove my now-FWD Ramcharger on to where I was going. The couple behind me looked very surprised. I guess they had something to talk about that night.

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13 hours ago, Eric said:

I was driving my old '78 Ramcharger one day in Houston. I turned onto Ella BLVD off of Loop 610. A couple hundred feet later, I heard a loud thump and the engine started freewheeling. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw my rear driveshaft fly down the road behind me, nearly hitting an old couple in a car behind me. I ran back and got my driveshaft, locked my front hubs, shifted into 4X4 High and drove my now-FWD Ramcharger on to where I was going. The couple behind me looked very surprised. I guess they had something to talk about that night.

Great presence of mind...........  So many people don't think when adversity strikes!  (I had a '76)

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