Conrod failures

redax5 said:
Slaters have closed, looks like Andy is looking to wind down, Wolfgang wants to wind down, I am no spring chicken and would like to stop in a few years
Anyone keen to buy any of the above businesses ?
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Hey Red, I've got another year to go on my rebuild. You need to keep those wings flapping for at least another year ... otherwise I'm stuffed and the Jota goes into the recycling bin 😁 PS ... drink more red wine.... Steve
 
They all talk about a loud bang, that's only happened to me once and it was in my own home. I was talking out a roof supporting brick wall and a way undersized beam in my 120-year-old Federation house, 100x50 hardwood spanning 3 mitres and the replacement was designed by me out of the Safe Loads Handbook for that load and span. 200mm and the rest I forget but well overspeced and replacing it with a steel U beam. That timber beam had allowed the roof to sag and as I was jacking the new steel beam into place and straightening that tiled roof there was suddenly a very loud BANG and cracking sound. It scared the crap out of me and I moved away as fast as I could go. Nothing else happened, I guess maybe the rafter nails had poped, never did find out why but I was an indelible memory I won't forget. I wonder how loud braking a rod is.
 
Dellortoman said:
Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge. A required study in any engineering course, as well as the Westgate Bridge collapse. There are plenty of huge engineering failures to learn from. Makes our conrods seem trivial in comparison.
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There is a display at Monash University in Melbourne with some pieces of the Westgate Bridge. I took some photos a few years ago...

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An interesting display. I've never actually seen it myself. I remember reading the Royal Commission report into the Westgate Bridge collapse when I was studying engineering. I was just a dumb undergraduate at the time, but I could barely believe what I was reading. Blind Freddie could see that loading the deck with concrete blocks and then removing bolts was a risky way to get the joint to line up.
 
Only ever had one rod go through a case and that was on a loaner Suzuki while the Laverda was in for a service. No bang, just sudden loss of power, closely followed by a very pissed off mechanic from the shop. Probably on about 3,000rpm and 60kmh.

I've had a lot of shit happen while riding Suzukis and is the reason I never gelled with the marque.
 
Same here. Only rod I ever put through a case was on someone else's bike, a BSA A10. The guy had just given it an oil change. At least he thought he had. He drained the old oil then got distracted by polishing the bike and forgot to put the new oil in. It went about half a km before going bang.
 
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