Raced at Norwalk for the MoPower events. Can ran well,,,10.14
w/ 1.39 60' ( Best ET has been a 10.04)

Noticed a puff of smoke upon returning to the pits...???

Small oil drip off the back of the pan.....hmmmm

Noticed the flex plate "ear" looked all mangled,,,and the bolt was loose,,,looks like it was hitting the rail on the back of the oil pan....

Checked all 4 convertor bolts,,,and found one of the bolts was entirely gone,,,and the threads in the convertor "pad" were all fubar,,,and that ear on the flex plate was also a mess, warped, Done racing for the day.....

Got the car home,,,,pulled the trans,,,flex plate,,,starter,,etc,,,,

The starter was broke off in the trans ( the snout portion )

The back of the oil pan rail took a good hit,,and the skirt above the pan has a small piece of metal broken off...

Also,,,the Cam plug and "boss" around it,,took a hit,,,bent the plug over a bit,,and removed a small piece of metal off the motor...

I think the oil leak is from the pan rail area,,,but going to "prime" the motor after i pull the distributor,,and make sure there is no oil leak near the cam plug area....

So,,,,I need...
- New starter,,,
- Convertor needs to be repaired
- Fix the oil pan rail
- "fix" or repair the cam plug area....

I always check stuff on a regular basis,,,but hadnt checked the convertor bolts this season,,,(only raced a few times this year ),,,,

Check your bolts,,,( i had lock tight on them as well ),,,Looks like the bolt backed out,,started hitting,,,broke off,,,and was acting like a grenade in the bellhousing,,taking out the starter,,pan,,cam plug,,etc...

Could have been worse,,,going to freshen up the trans while it's out...

Thought i would post some pics for everyone,,,



Pic of the pan rail and motor skirt ( passenger side rail )



Pic of the cam plug area



Starter



Flex plate,,,,,,

Sorry to hear of the problems Doc. Is that a stock block?

wow Doug so sorry to see this.hope you get it fixed pretty soon. Bobby

The block damage is normal for a conv bolt backing
out... I would pull the cam plug and replace...the
rest of the block is fine...bummer Doug

Thanks guys,,,,,
Stock block......
If I hadn't messed up the threads on the convertor, I could have it back together pretty quick,,,,,,
Looks like I just found a winter project....

Pretty amazing how a bolt doing 7000 rpm can do damage.

Doug good thing you found it and quit racing when you did as it could have caused even more damage!!!

Good to see you again and get her fixed over the winter and see you around somewhere next year


Russ

same thing happened to me last year . i put a hei a coil in it and has worked so far. i just check the conv. bolts more now.

So glad I saw this post! I took the car to the track this weekend and when I was loading on the trailer to come home I heard an unfamiliar noise, I just checked my flexplate bolts and the one I can see looking under the car is loose!, red loctite and all. WOW.

Are you running the small or big bolts? I had this happen with the small bolts before even with loctite, but I caught it before it did any damage as it was making a funny sound. I run the bigger bolts now along with loctite.

I tighten mine with a impact... I go through the starter
area when the starter isnt mounted yet... just a couple
of 3 hits or so... I had 1 bolt come loose when using
a wrench... never since using the impact

I recently bought a Matco 3/4 ratchet head that's 16 inches long.I had a hard time getting the bolts back out so a longer wrench was needed :runaway.

Check your balance. Had them come loose a few times last year and ended up taking the rotating assembly to Burtonsville Performance Machine on a hunch (was "balanced" elsewhere before) and they found it to be 140 grams out.

Doug, sorry to hear of your problems. I came down to see you Sunday morning and Ron and Randy said you had some problems and had already headed home. It good to see you and had a blast hanging with the gang Friday night. I too will be checking the converter bolts more often now.

Randy

Sorry to hear that buddy.

I prefer the ARP 12 point bolts with Red Locktite, I don't impact them (so tough to get a good angle without cocking/angling the extension which negates a lot of the applied torque anyway) so I chock the ring gear with a block of wood and use a 12 point box wrench and a mallet.

A lot of guys toss the inspection cover but it's actually your friend because it can give you an "audible alarm" if the TC bolt that's loosening scrapes the plate before contacting the Back of the block. I used to use a punch to dimple the plate inward so it was verifiably the closest gap/point to the Bolts...just in case.

I can't count how many mopars I've seen in the pits where guys were about to pull their valve covers thinking they had a rocker coming loose and it was the T/C bolts.

i made a sleeve to reduce the i.d. of the upper bolt hole on the starter to prevent it from kicking over and breaking the snout off.

I`ve read this too many times on here and I too use red loc-tight and star washers and never a problem and sometimes that`s 6-7 years later when I freshen up trans or motor. Glad it wasn`t much worse and that you caught it...........

I hear this so many times on this site it makes me cringe. When I was still working loc-tite salesmen would come in and tell us about new products, old products, and how to use them. Here are a few does and dont's.
1. All bolts nuts and fasteners must be clean. Recommended procedure is to clean the bolt on a wire wheel, soak and clean them in an oil free cleaner like paint thinner, and blow dry.
2. After applying loc-tite torque nuts or bolts to proper spec.
3. NEVER EVER retorque nuts and bolts at a later date as you will only break the seal that the loc-tite made. visual inspection only.
With convertor bolts sometimes it requires stacking open end wrenches (wrench on wrench. cheater lever) to get the bolts to proper torque. He recommended 271 (red) as the proper loc-tite for this use.
4. If you don't know the history of the bolts that you are going to use "get new ones" they are not that expensive.
If your convertor bolts come loose after doing the above method you have other issues going on.(alignment,vibration, ect.)
REMEMBER loc-tite will not work on greasy oil soaked bolts.
Good-luck with your repairs and I hope all goes well.

and I might add, lock washers of any kind are a no-no in that application. Actually, any application that requires a precise torque spec should not use a lock washer - although I have seen it done - from the factory.

Glad you caught it when you did Doug, could of been a bigger mess if not.Kudo's on listening to what the car was telling you.