blowed up, sir!, lesson learned Options

[lapuwali]

One of the sillier ways to do in an engine. I have dual IDFs, and one of the wing nuts on the air filter housing came off. This allowed the long stud (which I'd neglected to use Loctite on) to back out and fall into the slot between the jets. This jammed the float open.

What I felt was a loss of power on the freeway about 4 miles from my house. The bulk of the remaining trip was downhill, so I backed off and coasted most of the way. It was still running (just on two cylinders), and started smoking after a couple of miles. Mind, all I knew was I'd had a power loss and there were no bad noises. It quit at the bottom of an off-ramp. Hazard flashers on, hood up. Takes me about 10 minutes to figure out what happened.

Oh, and about every 10th car coming down the ramp stops behind me and honks impatiently, rather than just going around (2 car widths beside me). I guess everyone's forgotten what hazard flashers mean, and that if a guy is standing next to the thing with his hands inside the engine bay, that maybe there's something wrong.

After pulling out the stud and draining the carb, hoping I won't hydro-lock, I try to start it. Fires up, runs great. Still smokes though, so I'm sure I did some lasting damage to that pair of rings and cylinder.

Lesson learned? Pull over RIGHT NOW at the first sign of trouble, even if it's only a couple more miles, and even if there aren't any bad noises. Had I fixed the fuel problem right away, I may not be rebuilding the top end of my engine now.