Good News and Very Bad News

[chetbrz]

Good News is the Goose Neck water inlet is fixed with no leaks.  The silver solder worked out great.

I got the motor hooked up to battery and gasoline and she fired up no problem.  Never got a chance to check oil pressure because when I revved the engine for the first time the pressure plate exploded.  Not a noise you want to hear after spending a fortune on an engine rebuild.  It sounded like the motor was tearing itself to bits.  The bottom of the bell housing dust pan was filled with debris. 

I removed the clutch and pressure plate and here is what was left.



The clutch and flywheel were not damaged.  I thought that maybe the arms hit the fork for the throw out bearing but didn't see any damage or any indication that the arms came in contact with the fork.  The following pictures are shot from looking down to the right and left of the bell housing and the last picture is looking up from underneath the bell housing.  The fork is tie wrapped in place with no apparent marks from the event.







 
I guess there is a limit to how many times you can rebuild a pressure plate.
So now I need to source a solution.  Any suggestions ??

Not having a lot of fun at this point !!

[rwollman]

Chet_ That is not good!!.. There is no way that motor could develop enough RPM to do that on its own.  Been pondering on what could have caused it and can only come up with heat fatigue crack.  Appears that the unit was rebuilt prior to installation, find it hard to believe that crack didn't show up during machining process.  Have u contacted party who rebuilt it and and advise them?   May help someone else in the future.   Did any of the bolts shear off holding plate to flywheel?  Appears that starter drive is pretty well protected but you might want to check that while its apart for impact and/or damage.  This may have been a blessing in disguise as I hate to think what could happen had u been driving it and this happened.  Could have caught and tore up tranny and/or canvas ujoints with weight of car.  U may try Hagans Auto parts, they list for your car but say to call for availability.  Might be a place to start anyways.  Am quite certain that is not a one yr fit.....
Good luck in your endevor........

[chetbrz]

I think your comments are right on.  Yes I do believe the actual pressure plate was reground just one to many times. 

Here is what I think happened.  My first error of not tying the bearing fork back when I hand cranked the motor probably cracked the thin pressure plate where the fork attaches.  In the picture below you can see how thin the surface had become.  Even though I repaired the arm the damage was done.  Like the Titanic it was doomed.  Once I revved the engine the fork let go and the bell housing turned into a blender with the remaining forks and springs as chum. 



I did contact the builder and he contacted the people that did the repair.  They might have a replacement.  We'll see.?

I also have an old Interchangeable parts book [Chilton] from the early 30's.  I could not find any markings but Chilton shows it as EJ10  13 in it's interchange book.

Chrysler Part number:  42233

I believe this pressure plate  (EJ10 - 13) was used on :

1927                     Whippet 93A Rockford Clutch
1928-29                Whippet 98
1930-31                Whippet 98A

1928                     Willys-Knight 56
1928-29                Willys-Knight 70A
1929                     Willys-Knight 56
1929-30                Willys-Knight 70B

1929-30                Marmon Roosevelt
1931-32                Marmon 70

I do think you are right.., it might be a blessing in disguise.  If that plate would have come apart while declutching with the transmission in place and motoring down the road.., I would have suffered more than just a scary noise.  To my surprise the plate didn't fall apart until I unscrewed the pressure plate housing.  So just the small parts were bouncing around.

I will try your recommendation.  Even if the rebuilder comes up with another plate it's always good to have some spare parts.  After all if you have a spare the original part will never fail.  [ Murphy's Law ]

Cheers Chet...

[frankp]

Good luck to you, Chet.