1963 1/2 Ford Falcon aka Martha

[Ziegelsteinfaust]

Originally Posted by nlped

After 2 days of driving around the local Mineral Wells/Weatherford we set off. My wife followed me in the 'chase' truck and we set off for Memphis TN to visit my mother. My mom's first car was a 1963 Falcon so I wanted to show her my new toy. Then I drove it the last 240 miles home for a total of 810 miles without much issue. It did seem to be using a lot of oil, but I figured that was probably something simple. Boy, was I WRONG!!! About 2 miles from home the car made a small 'bAnG' & quit running. It was a catastrophic bAnG. Turned out that the crankshaft broke in 2 and cracked the block, destroyed the timing gear cover etc and bent some rods and valves.

I had this happen 20 years ago to a 521 cubic inch Cadillac in a 68 Nova I had at 5000 rpm getting on the freeway very quickly for fun. It took the crank, 6 of the 8 rods, pistons, cam, and block were destroyed. The heads were in all likelyhood trash since a few pistons hit them at speed, and lifted both heads up off the block. Intake manifold was a 1/4 out when warped. Plus punched holes in the oil pan.

The crank shoved into the trans cracking its pump, and locking it up. Sheared the pinion in my 8.2 rear-end, and twisted the driveshaft almost a full revolution.

Only thing useable was the water pump, carb, and accessories.

With all the carnage it was amazing no accidents happened as I bloodbathed 3 lanes of the 10 freeway at Temple City on ramp. I had like 8 quarts of oil in the engine, and something like 2 gallons of tranny fluid. With all the coolers, and lines I had. As I spun out doing like 2.5 complete turns ending up backwards in the slow lane mostly.