H
HardScrabble
Guest
Was thinking about Jr's valve spring........a not uncommon failure though often more catastrophic. Windsor (who knows more about this stuff than me) says often engines will live with the inner valve spring broken, probably can. Back in the day though, when we had a valve train problem it usually seemed to eat itself like a stray dog on a hamburger.
But some other failures were interesting or unusual.
Most unusual was Bobby Labonte burned two plug wires. Story is that rubber debris go thrown up onto the headers, the headers set the rubber afire. The burning rubber burned the plug wires.
Must have been a lot of loose rubber laying around. Greg Biffle lost the belt which drives the oil pump. Speculation is that a chunk of rubber ws thrown between the belt and the pulley either breaking the belt or throwing it off the drive. Effectively ended the life of that engine and Greg's day. Not an entirely unusal occurence, we've seen it before. It is usually reserved for road courses where the occassional agriculture adventure will throw something up into the engine compartment. Teams will often surround the belts with a mesh gurad to prevent this. Maybe they should consider using the guards all the time.
Kurt Busch lost his power steering early in the running. Another failure we have seen on more than one occasion this year. Matter of fact this is at least twice it has happened to Kurt and I believe Ryan has lost his in a couple of races also. There are probably others that do not occur to me right now. Kurt reportedly lost the belt on the pump, but no speculation as to why, could have been more debris. Seems there are more power steering failures this year than I recall from years past. Wonder if the teams are running some new pump or arrangement which isn't proving out quite as reliable.
But some other failures were interesting or unusual.
Most unusual was Bobby Labonte burned two plug wires. Story is that rubber debris go thrown up onto the headers, the headers set the rubber afire. The burning rubber burned the plug wires.
Must have been a lot of loose rubber laying around. Greg Biffle lost the belt which drives the oil pump. Speculation is that a chunk of rubber ws thrown between the belt and the pulley either breaking the belt or throwing it off the drive. Effectively ended the life of that engine and Greg's day. Not an entirely unusal occurence, we've seen it before. It is usually reserved for road courses where the occassional agriculture adventure will throw something up into the engine compartment. Teams will often surround the belts with a mesh gurad to prevent this. Maybe they should consider using the guards all the time.
Kurt Busch lost his power steering early in the running. Another failure we have seen on more than one occasion this year. Matter of fact this is at least twice it has happened to Kurt and I believe Ryan has lost his in a couple of races also. There are probably others that do not occur to me right now. Kurt reportedly lost the belt on the pump, but no speculation as to why, could have been more debris. Seems there are more power steering failures this year than I recall from years past. Wonder if the teams are running some new pump or arrangement which isn't proving out quite as reliable.