Running Cutaway Engine Throws Connecting Rod! 

Back in the 70's I had a car with a slant six in it. One day on the highway it started to knock. Since I was not far from home, I continued to drive it. The car was ready for the junkyard anyway. Suddenly the knocking got very intense and before I could react, there was a loud bang and I could hear parts bouncing under the car as I came to a stop on the side of the road. Number six had blown right through the side of the engine below the water jacket. For some reason, I turned the key and the engine started up again running on five cylinders. (#6 was laying on the highway) The imbalanced engine shook so badly, I could hardly hold the steering wheel, but with only one more mile to go, I drove it home. Those old slant 6 engines were very tough.

"He who may be without oil may cast the first rod." Compressions 3:92

Breaking a con rod reminded me of a comment from a racing driver back in the late 70's His car retired from an event in a huge cloud of oil smoke. Later when asked what caused his car to break down, the driver said "it was an electrical fault" The interviewer (in disbelieving tone) questioned the driver for more detail, and he said " It was an electrical fault, - I broke a con rod, and it punched a hole clean through the side of the block, and knocked the alternator off". Haha, very nice.....

Your curiosity didn't kill the cat but it sure kills a few motors haha.

You may have voided the warranty....

If only the Slo Mo Guys were here to film this event!! It would have been so cool to see the rod shearing apart slowly.

I that engine threw a rod because it was feeling kind of cranky.🤣

Your videos are very "morish" (my wife's word). As in you can't just eat one potato chip, they're very morish. You want more. Entertaining yet informative. You'd have made a great shop or Industrial arts teacher. The world needs more of those. I gotta stop binge watching your videos for tonight and go to bed. Thanks for the awesome videos.

I found an old lawnmower in the woods and I rebuild the engine for high school shop class. It ran for 10 more years!

Bet you couldn't JB-Weld that back together, or could you? :D

Years ago a NASCAR racer (Ken Schrader) was asked why his engine failed. His remark was very interesting. He replied, “ a very important part inside the engine failed.” This was not the reply the reporter was fishing for. But it was a very truthful answer. Love your videos. I always learn something from them. Thank you for this video.

"I've giving it all she's got, Captain!!! If I push her any farther, the whole thing will blow!!" - Scotty

knock knock! Who's there? Connecting rod. Connecting rod who...wait, What connecting rod!?

Put a small supercharger or turbo on a small engine like this and see what happens! Any kind of forced induction would be neat to see

The last time I got an oil change at Walmart, they didn't put the cap back on my motor. All the oil Spilled Out after I drove around 4 to 500 miles on a road trip thinking I have fresh oil and it's all good LOL. It was not all good and my engine started knocking like that. But Walmart did give me a $50 gift card and had two mechanics come out immediately and pour oil in my car. Now I can visualize what happened to my car. Thank you again for all your hard work and dedication. You help me visualize things that I couldn't imagine without seeing firsthand.

This video brought back a really great childhood memory of when my dad and I made the “Visible V8” operational motor model. Thanks so much for that. I really enjoy your videos.

Connecting rod was made of type 8 tool grade Chineseium.

now silicone a glass window and throw in another con rod so we can see the oil getting lubed etc

I just wanna give a shout to you project farm! I watch many channels, your the only one with a bunch of subs that actually reads.. And responds to comments.. It must take a lot of time but much respect bro! Seriously, I and most of us really appreciate what you do.!

Yet another OUTSTANDING video! You always figure out a way to answer questions many of us have had over the years! Thank you for all of your time, effort and energy that you put into each project. And for what it's worth, I don't think it's wasteful at all. Its education and instruction. A lot of people learn a lot of things watching your channel. My only complaint is that I wish I would have subscribed way sooner! Keep up the GREAT work!

who knew an angle grinder and a few scrap engines could be so educational. lol if all auto shop teacher's started doing demo's the way you do then alot more kids would be interested in what they where learning.

Your videos are outstanding!

Have you ever tried throwing some type of super charger on the mower engine ?? That would be cool!

I collected old lawnmowers when I was young I never had to buy a lawnmower for years until I just got tired of rebuilding them they were definitely Frankenstein mowers....

fix the connecting rod with jb weld

I'm seeing several votes for JB Weld... Add one. :P

Only one Briggs and Stratton engine was harmed in the making of this video.

The Dexter of the mechanical world. Even brings them back to life to dismember them once again. 🔪⚰😈☻

Try running an engine as fast as you can get it to go until it explodes.

What a waste. Starving kids in Africa could've eaten that Briggs.

This is a really "COOL" video. I picked up a tractor with a golf ball size hole in the crankcase. When I analyzed it I found that gas had leaked into the crankcase. I told the owner and he said, " he wondered why the oil level was so high before he started it". Keep these videos coming. Stay safe, Joe Z

I have thrown several rods over the years, dropped a valve, twisted cranks, broke timing chains and punched valves thru pistons because of the timing chain break. Your videos are fun to watch and great for explaining to my wife what can go wrong

my story, i rebuilt a toyota 6 cyl engine, i bought an engine from a burned out car to replace one that had seized due to antifreeze instead of oil....anyway. i had to fit the old head to the 'new' block, so while it was apart, i wanted to look at the main and big end, the big ends needed replacment, so i did, the manual specifically said, no locking nuts or loctite needed, though i wanted to....wish i did, as a few days after rebuild, one of he big ends came loose on it.

"Totally running it"=totally ruining it

His testing of products is second to none. Consumer reports has nothing on this guy......total respect!

Its awesome you actually communicate with your viewers and do things they want to see! Good on you!

Time to pick up a high frame rate camera!!

Pretty tough little Briggs all things considered.

I already love this channel but when I watch the older videos I can see why the channel has grown so robustly. You have a knack for teaching and you inspire the viewer to keep watching.

My dad bought a classic British motorbike to restore when I was a kid (an Ariel 650 Huntmaster). The con rod looked a lot like that one, only in more pieces. There was a big V-shaped crack in the side of the crankcase as well.. He kept it in a jar of oil on his desk as a paperweight - and never did get round to finishing the restoration! Great video.

yo JB weld the engine back together like for him to do it I wanna see if it will work

I'm surprised the piston looked this good. Aside from the connection rod breaking off, I was expecting more gauges and deep impressions. Thanks for the lesson.

Videos like this are why I don't think anyone has an excuse to not know how the machines that run their lives work. Great stuff.

Sweet vid, thanks for the upload. I now know that i have a better understanding of an knocking engine that I personally destroyed 4 days after an oil change. Oil level on par level. Oil plug snuggly in place. Oil cap completely sealed. Oil dip stick clean and fully inserted. Oil never got checked out very often by previous owner whom I am happily married to now.... Love my life and the wife.T Thanks again Project Farm. Blessed be

Cool, but I remember my mates 265 Hemi throwing a rod out the side at 5000 RPM. A Bloody BIG hole in the side and a piston lodged in the Strut tower. Total destruction.

This would be a great video to collab with someone with a high speed camera. That would be some awesome footage.

Every mower quakes in fear of this channel. Whenever a friend's lawnmower refuses to start, I will set this video in front of it, and it will immediately start without me having to pull the cord.

my dad would have loved this video, he always loved your videos and he thought they were good and really interesting, now he is in the hospital after a horrible heart attack, i hope he wakes up and can watch your videos again

You should do this again with a high speed camera

I want to call this an RUD, but it seems to be an RSD. (Rapid scheduled disassembly)

Helped a friend whose son's car's engine was seized. I (we) assumed it was a broken connecting rod. We rotated the engine backwards a bit, and it freed the lodging enough that it would run, and we at least drove it home and saved a tow charge. I knew it could not have seized that solidly by what was said. That came across as a freakin' magician; it even surprised me.

In Gary Indiana in about 1959 at a fire at Jackson’s restaurant, a Detroit Diesel engine in a fire truck found a way to start sucking the engine oil out of the crankcase and ran away. The engineer running the controls on the side of the truck didn’t’t hear it above all the other chaotic noises. He was killed when the engine accelerated to a point it couldn’t hold together and when it detonated it went off with such force that internal parts inside blasted the Roots blower on the side of the engine completely off the block and this 60 pound accessory came through the truck body and killed the engineer where he stood. I went to high school with his son. These 2-cycle engines run with an abundance of available combustion air and if they pick up a stray source of fuel it will burn it all and run-off to a theoretical unlimited RPM and explode apart in the process.

awesome! now cast a connecting rod made from jb weld. haha

Iirc this is how Takumi's ae86 engine blew (second stage)

You honestly have one of the few genuinely entertaining RU-vid channels left keep it up

When we were in our early teens my brother and I rebuilt a lawnmower for a friend into a go cart. The head was slightly pitted so my dad shaved off a bit (really more than he wanted to) and we slapped it back on. He warned us and we warned our friend not to run it full bore. Well he didn't, but his cousin did. And boy did it move! Until the connecting rod decided that the inside of the crank case was no longer a satisfying life. Compression is an important factor. We learned that valuable lesson that day.

Back in the 70's, I rode a Harley with my girl Roxie. They both ended up blowing a rod.

now if only you had a local friend that had a actual high speed camera. it would be great to see that at like 10k fps

Always interesting stuff here! As I mentioned in another post, the rod is smashed off not necessarily by the actual failure but by the heavy crank full of momentum coming around, bashing and severing off the big end of the rod. I've seen automotive steel rods come off the crank at low rpm and the crank was not able to bash it apart but simply blocked the crank from turning. Analysis of the rod was very telling in this particular situation. It was a bolt failure!

>turn on english subtitles >go to 0:39 >"... the slick 50 engine the internet we Uncie's previously" lol

In my experience(yours may vary)a briggs will always let go at the crankshaft while a tecumseh will always let go at the piston and therefore will make a more entertaining mess

Hey Rod, You lost your cap!

I honestly couldn't have cared less until I started watching then it became the most important thing on the Internet.

My first car was a Mini (1965) and it ended up with a knackered oil pump and I drove (thrashed!) it for over 360 miles before it eventually died. But it didn't throw a rod. A university roommate of mine (mechanical engineer, I'm an electronic engineer) used to work for British Rail and he and a colleague were working on a large loco diesel engine. It was common practice to tighten the head bolts (individual head caps per cylinder) by sitting on a coconut mat straddling the head to get the best purchase on the torque wrench. The engine was running to maintain operating temp and pressure and my friend's colleague had just finished torquing up the last bolt when the engine threw a rod and punched the piston right through the head caps straight between his legs and buried itself in a wall about 35 feet across the engine maintenance shed! Potentially lethal things - con rods and pistons when they are moving! 😱😱😁

Try putting two carburetors on at once, like one carb connected to the other, or one intake welded to another intake.. then you could get the engine to rev insanely high

That should just buff out i think!

There are two things I can say. I will say one thing is this comment and the second in another. The rod knock was going with equivalent of rod bearing damage because of lack of lubrication. This is comparable to what often happened in VW air cooled engines type 1 and 2 because #3 cylinder got the least amount of lubrication. It would lead #3 rod bearing spinning and it would lead a condition comparable to what happened to that lawn mower engine. Back when I used to mow lawns for hire I had a McLane lawm mower with a 4 h.p. Briggs and Stratton engine. I had the engine seize up on me because of lack of lubrication. It was possible to unseize it. Later on it threw a rod just like what could be seen on this engine. Thanks to what you have shared with this engine, I got to actually see something equal to what happened on my lawn mower which I appreciated seeing. That was great. It appears I will not need to make a second comment. I enjoyed watching this just as much as all your other videos which are very educational. Very nice work!!!!

Very similar story to Roy's story below. Back in the 80's, one Sunday morning, the neighbor next door asked me if I could look at his car which had made a "funny noise" on his way home from partying the night before. It was a 70's vintage Slant 6 powered Mopar product. He started the car right up and it shook so much I thought the mirrors were going to fall off it. I popped the hood and saw a grape fruit sized hole in the side of the block where you could see the crankshaft spinning around like it was a cutaway display in a museum.......and laying right on top of the steering box in all it's glory......lay the mangled connecting rod that had exited through that hole the night before. I reached down and picked it up while chuckling a bit. The neighbor asked what it was, I told him "The end, time for another car", and closed the hood. He was genuinely surprised since he had just driven the car home 35-40 miles on the highway after it had made the "funny noise". The rod still hangs on a wall in my shop.You would think oil was optional in those motors by how they just kept running..

I truly love these videos that was awesome ! I have a really bad shoulder and I have a pull start lawn mower I don't have that big of a yard but I'm going to see if I can rig up to start my mirror the way you start on your videos. I'm not Kim mechanically inclined but I have you to thank if I can make it work. I am truly grateful !

Awesome video. Marathon clocks apparently don't live up to the name... why stop at 1.44?

The workshop lad and I once removed the sump of a 1.8 Duratec focus with a big end knock on cylinder one,set up his camera as safely as we could and started it,expecting a quick death prompted by me revving the thing we were disappointed and thoroughly impressed at the same time when the thing hung on for an incredible 27 minutes with no oil! During which time we alternated idling with blipping,gradual WOT and some rev limiter,it was practically quiet on a gently progressive throttle between 1500-3200 rpm.It eventually threw what was left of the rod out of the back below the cylinder bulge in the crankcase and a small nicely square hole in the front,it was solid with a three foot bar on the crank bolt.the footage is impressive slowed down.

High school Grade 11. We had a small engines course and the school had bought a number of new Briggs lawn mower engines. The idea was disassembly and reassembly. So there was quite a few kids in there that thought they knew about engines but really knew very little. One kid, always taking smack, reassembled his engine incorrectly in some way and it was very hard to pull. Teacher comes over, just HEAVES the cord and the engine started BANG BANG BANG, literally 2 seconds and the connector rod end blew a fist sized hole in the crank case, pieces everywhere. I've seldom laughed quite as hard

Please use the technical term, It threw a leg outa bed!

a proper slo-mo camera would have made for awesome footage, just sayin

I broke a wrist pin in a 4 cylinder car engine ('83 Cavalier if you care to know) once. Didn't take long before it threw the rod out the side of the block. I was young and dumb, but still not surprised. What did surprise me, and a couple of mechanics who actually looked at it... When the wrist pin broke, it also warped a rocker arm, but didn't damage the push rod. To this day, I have no idea how that miracle happened.

It's good to see I'm not the only one who has that "I wonder what would happen", a long with the "I wonder what it looks like when this happens" curiosity like I do😁

Will jb weld fix the connecting rod and fill in the worn out bearing material? Lol just an idea I'm positive it wouldn't work

Where are the SlowMo guys?

Just staring to go back through the older videos. Where ya been all my life!! Very cool stuff!

I had a small engine class in high school. One student had taken apart an engine with an electric start motor on the side and put it back together. During its test run, it was backfiring pretty bad. All off a sudden it threw a rod out the side the electric motor was on, and shot the electric motor into the heavy sheet metal wall hard enough to leave a good dent. The start motor weighed between 5-10lbs, and the wall was about 10 feet away, so we were lucky nobody was between the two.

Please get someone with a Phantom cam

This begs the question. Can you fix a connecting rod with JB weld? Or maybe a valve?

I just love all your test videos, very interesting and entertaining to watch way better than any TV show in my opinion ! I watch them all keep them coming and thank you very much !!!!

My VW seized and threw a rod. Brought a used rod correct for my engine. I flushed out all the metal that went through oil pump and vallies refit new bearing caps to all rods. Bolted it back together and that engine has been half way around Australia and is still running sweet. Compression on all four cylinders is around 140 psi.. VW are awesome!

needs actual slomo

Missed an opportunity to walk into frame with a piece glued to your forehead, all the while slurring your speech.

Great show. In the old days, my 1948 Chevrolet had babbit bearings and one went bad because of recycled oil use. I removed the engine pan and removed a brass shim from the knocking connecting rod and tried to drive it. All it did was lock the engine up and screech the tires. I love seeing how things go poof and let the smoke out.

when I was in small engines class in high school say... 3 or 4 years ago, you had a choice of bringing in your own engine to work on or use these really nice and brand new b&s motors, which the teacher would intentionally do things to the engine to stop it from working, and I remember this one time someone got it working and it blew a connecting rod and it shot out the side of the crank case, luckily no one was hurt and the teacher had nothing to do with it.

jb weld! JBWELD!

Lol I was your 200,000th subscriber

I had an early 80s Buick LeSabre with a 350 cubic inch smallblock V8 that did this while climbing a long hill on a hot day. A piece went through the oil pan, with a puddle of oil on the ground at the side of the road. The body was rusty- I had it towed to a body shop, and they kept it as a parts car for the towing price. I got on a bus to continue my vacation trip.

In just 2 videos, I've learned far more about engine dynamics than in the past 2 decades. If only this kind of thing was so easily accessible back in my younger years. Thanks again for a great and informative video. Engines may have been harmed or mistreated in the production of this piece :)

Try running an engine on 100% undiluted cooling liquid.

Small engines and very old car engines used a material called: babbit which is a soft lead type of material that allows it to run with limited oil pressure. But, just like all engines, they all require proper oil, oil changes and types of oil. Older cast iron engines with all cast iron can last way longer than any engine built today. That's a fact. A vehicle that throws a rod while driving it, makes a huge noise and will cause further damage to the rest of the engine and transmission.

That's amazing watching the engine come apart from the inside view that's pretty wild

back in the 70's my older brother had an lawn mower engine like that. he made a set of rod bearings from the inside part of a measuring tape. the tape used to be flat and not slightly curved like todays tapes. it worked like a charm.

Thanks for the vid. As an hgv mechanic I've seen all too many times the results of catastrophic failure but never witnessed it as it happens. Gr8 vid once again thank you. 👍👍👍😎🇬🇧

Back when my brother and I were racing go karts, that was when the engine was running it’s best; just before failure. Haha!

- Oh, no! - What the f*** was that? -The motor. It's thrown a rod. - Is that serious? - Yep.

This episode is the best advertisement for safety glasses, safety shield , and a safety room ….. I watched a RU-vid episode about aircraft engines and a fuel/air mix under compression is every bit as explosive as gunpowder…