why did this happen???...tranny exploded...

Blue89SC

Registered User
I had just picked up my car a few days earlier from being painted...everything was going great...then i drop the clutch and i had a little wheel hop, then i hear an awful noise like my transmission dragging on the ground. None of the gears would move the car. So after getting it towed home I take a look under the car and the part of the tranny connected to the drive shaft is pretty much not there. The yoke connecting to the tranny is also broken. It looks like someone put a bomb in my tranny... anyone have an idea what hapened??????
Thanks,
Anthony
 
Take a closer look...

Could it be just the driveshaft? Maybe you broke the U-joint
and the yolk is still stuck in the tranny?
 
The key to this one will be failure analysis. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where you can find someone to help you. I used to work in Warranty with heavy trucks. So I regularly worked with Eaton and Rockwell field techs on determining failure modes, mostly for their drive axles.

Wheel hop is a killer in our 5 speeds that shocks the driveline. This can, and does cause failure of the transmission output shaft, the drive shaft, u-joints, or even yolks. Your failure sounds extremely catastrophic and not typical of other people’s failures. Usually the output shaft twists off inside the tail housing of the transmission and you just don’t go anymore. For the rear housing to come apart, it sounds like you had prior damage to the tail housing that weakened it. Thus when the wheels hopped and the driveline was shocked, the energy rather than being absorbed by the housing, caused it to fracture.

What you would want to look for is signs of stress fractures that may have been there before. Thus with stress fractures, the part isn’t broken, but it’s breaking. And it gets worse each time it is stressed until it finally lets loose.

If you haven’t regularly beat on your car with wheel hop incidents, I would be suspicious of the paint shop perhaps taking your car for a test drive.
 
Most professional paint shops have a mileage in and mileage out on the reciepts and crap... and all places should have that :)
 
Sounds like the driveshaft (yoke or u-joint) was bad and fatigued the tailshaft. It's possible the u-joint broke (seen it before) from the wheel hop and then pieces started scattering. Or, somehow, the motor/tranny/rear end got out of alignment. This will cause all kinds of driveline issues.

The getting it back from the paintshop is prolly just coincidence.
 
then i drop the clutch
Rule #1. Never drop the clutch in an SC. That initiates wheel hop. Rule #2. Don't wheel hop. You are not the first to explode a tranny from wheel hop. Wheel hop is extremely violent and will break all kinds of parts. Basically any part that has wear can be the weakest link that lets go when you wheel hop the car. This includes axles, cv joints, rear end gears, u-joints, bushings, motor mounts and transmission output shafts. I'm sure there are others.

Sorry dude. :(
 
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I can take a guess

DON"T DROP THE CLUTCH ANYMORE!!! You saw where it can get you!! if you want to destroy a car, go rent one and put insurance on it!! There are not too many cars in the real world developed with the ability to suck up the abuse inflicted when you "side-step" the clutch!! Especially the SC's!!

Sorry, venting... I see too many user created problems on here sometimes. Most of the time you can have the answer to your question by looking at your question!!

Good luck and happy spending!!

:)

Phil
 
Same thing happened to me....

I had the same thing happen on my '90. Was street racing it (I know we don't do that), grabbed second..and boom no gear would work. Got off the road, looked under the car and there was the output shaft half missing. Had to replace the yoke also because had crack the yoke. Ford garage had a good laugh about, said they never seen that before. I know it sucks, but hey I always say live and learn......I know I have....Jeff
 
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