Cam change to solid- Devastating find.

[deputycrawford]

I put the Engle custom grind solid cam in my car and my engine builder came over to degree it. He found my crank thrust went from its original .003-.005 thrust to around .250 thrust. It sounds like when I blew my trans into two completely separate pieces that the crank took a beating too. I just put around $7000 under that hood last year. You can imagine how I felt when I worked all day to get the car ready to put back together and he found that. I worked a total of 15 hrs on the car, with parts and cherry picker runs, to get that engine out to send back to him for repair. When he found it, I only had about 2 more hrs to get it running again. I have never been so disappointed over a car in my life. I have reservations to tow it to the Charger show in Jefferson City Mo. I dont even know if it will be ready in time now. What a waste. I'll keep everyone informed of the progress of the repair. If it's too bad then I'll start on the 440 block I have. A 500 sounds nice about now.

[firefighter3931]

Geez Dep, that really blows !    What about sourcing another 383 steel crank.  Those are plentiful and should be easy enough to find. Keep us posted. Don't loose faith man !

Ron

[Brock Samson]

sorry DC, really... 

[grouseman]

Pardon my ignorance, but what has happened to cause this?  Is the crank bent?  Isn't thrust controlled by one of the main bearings?  Trying to learn . . .

[mikepmcs]

Dep
Man that really bites, you'll get her fixed though, hang in there. 

Pardon my ignorance, but what has happened to cause this? Is the crank bent? Isn't thrust controlled by one of the main bearings? Trying to learn . . .

Grouse
I found an interesting article on thrust bearing failure, thought i'd share.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/2003/eb50331.htm

v/r
Mike

[deputycrawford]

Thanks for the replies guys. Firefighter, I dropped it off at the shop today. He is supposed to get into it next week sometime. He will let me know if the crank is bad, or if like Grouseman said, the mains took the beating. To answer all questions. I think it went when I was at 105 MPH floored in third gear. A cap came out of the front u-joint and locked up the output shaft. The trans gave away by blowing completely into two pieces. I broke the valve body in two places and cracked the TCI deep, cooling, aluminum pan top to bottom on both sides. I think the explosion was so great it shoved my crank forward to try to relieve some pressure. I threw out my new 10" 3000 rpm converter and trans and bought an A&A trans and Dynamic 9 1/2" 3500 rpm converter. I thought that fixed it. I guess not. The engine showed no signs of trouble while running so It might be pretty fixable. I was supposed to have it on a trailer to Jefferson, MO in 4 weeks. It might not make it. The original designer, Carl Cameron was supposed to sign it. What a disappointment. At least I didn't grenade the numbers block. He is calling this a do over. He is going through all of it again. I have the parts and most of the machining done. He just has to fix and hot tank, clean it up again and put it back together (I hope). I'll keep in touch. He better tear into it next week. Time is running out.

[dodge freak]

Sounds like you got it in time, if it was running and lock up you would have had major problems. Even if you need a new crank and I would think you would it should not cost too much. Good luck hope you have it back soon.