Deliberately trying to break it

[NitroM3]

Ok I got a text today from a friend and member of the forum that read..."how come you never encourage people to break sheeet on the forum"?

Naturally there was much more to the text and its deeper meaning (if you knew who sent it to me

) but it made me laugh and than I went HMMMM!??
Why not start a semi humorous threads telling about parts that we have actively and deliberately attempted to break or destroy.

So here is the simple guidelines of this thread!!

Please post only about motorcycles ,cars boats or trucks that you PERSONALLY have tried to deliberately break something on them.


Let me start with one of parts breaking adventures.

Years ago I had a power-glide 2 speed GM automatic transmission in one of my cars. There was nothing wrong with it what so ever. In fact it was low mileage and I had recently rebuilt with many new parts. I had a Turbo Hydro 350 (3 speed GM automatic) I was planning to swap it out with it. So I decided I would find out if the stories about how a power-glide will take most any pounding you can give them and keep on shifting. So for the next couple of weeks every chance I got it was a neutral drop into first. A neutral drop for some that are not familiar with that term is when you have an automatic transmission and instead of placing the shiftier into a gear you leave it in neutral rev up the engine as high as you have the nerve to do and slam it into first gear. The tires always break and sometime haze up in a cloud of smoke and spin like crazy. Normally after a few times you blow the transmission all apart and usually un-rebuildable. That **** Power glide took at least 20 or more neutral drops and finally I got tired of doing them and swapped out the transmission. I gave that transmission to a friend and I told him what I had done and he used it without any problem for at least a year or two before selling the car with that power-glide still shifting fine.

 

[wwillson]

In the late 80s my brother and I had a big 70s GM car, that I can't remember what it was, but I surly remember what we did to it. We would be cruising down the highway at 60 or 70 MPH and put it in neutral, then hold the gas to the floor and put it in reverse. If you did this going down a hill, you could leave a black skid mark about a quarter mile long and the smoke was impressive! It was all fun and games until Dad asked if we knew anything about the skid marks going down the hill on the way to town. We didn't exactly admit to it, but he said that we better knock it off before someone gets hurt. Nothing in the driveline ever broke. Simply amazing.

 

[IndyIan]

Experimental abuse? I did a 0-60 run in my 95 Neon ATX Neon about 30 seconds after a cold start in -25C. Just went slower and the engine sounded much nosier than normal, I think I had T6 5W40 in it.
Did some second gear clutch sidesteps in the 03 MTX Tracker on gravel in RWD, and tried one 4WD high rpm launch on pavement, I think all 4 spun a bit but not for very far. Gives a good yank though for 10' lol
When I was a kid I did break my 1981 CT110 motor bike drag racing a buddy on his XR80. When I was shifting normally he could beat me but the 110 had a centrifugal autoclutch, so eventually I was just holding it WO with no lifting to shift and almost stomping on the shifter to get it go into the next gear. I won a couple races in a row until it broke a single screw in the shifter mechanism in the case. It was a $0.50 repair but my Dad figured out what I was doing to break it.

 

[Zee09]

We used to pile in a 1973 Ford LTD and run around the back roads of Pennsylvania bridge jumping.

Meaning go through a covered bridge and try to get to the other side never touching the floor of it.

After that turfing fields.
The car appeared to be bulletproof.

 

[spasm3]

Neutral dropped a 1980 x car Buick skylark ( v-6 2.8 fwd) at full throttle several times.
Trans went out at 70k.

I wasn't necessarily trying to break it, I was just negligent, enjoying the drag style launches.

 

[Kruse]

I had a college roomie that had an early 70s short-wheelbased Ford Bronco. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t get it to do a wheelie by driving in reverse and throwing it in drive. So he got a brighter idea by putting it in 4WD, driving forward and then throwing it into reverse. Success! He got it to do a reverse wheelie! Until he broke a front axle. His dad immediately knew how that axle broke and that wheelies stopped immediately.

 

[WylieCoyote]

Hate to admit this, but I purposely broke a work vehicle so they'd issue me something better.

It was a 1970-something Chevy base model 1/2 ton 4WD 3-on-the-floor with probably 250,000 miles on it. Used as a parts runner, dead vehicle jump & snow plow. Total POS, worn out to the point that you could hear NO compression resistance on the starter when you cranked it. Rusted, beaten up, and uncomfortable. Everyone hated it, but it 'worked', so replacing it never came up.

Whey they moved me into the parts departments, I had to drive that thing multiple times a day. The clutch was on its last leg anyway, so I started doing full-throttle launches in 4WD in 3rd gear, until the clutch started slipping so badly that it would no longer move forward in anything higher than L. The service manager had a tech look at it, and it was decided that a new clutch would cost more than it was worth. Can't remember what they did with the POS, but they pulled a 5-year-old 2wd 2.5L M/T S-10 off the used lot, and gave it to the Parts Department. That was a happy day.