<VV> VirtualVairs Digest, Vol 58, Issue 51

[Phil Brandt]

Re: Grade 8 bolts...a lesson (painfully) learned...

Circa February 1978, my wife and I took my '66-powered '62 Spyder 
convertible north from Mountain Home AFB, ID to Fairchild AFB in Spokane, 
where I was to "do" the altitude chamber, an F-111 aircrew currency 
requirement .  A couple of days later we headed back south to "home drome." 
As we drove through the northern Idaho wilderness south of White Bird, the 
snow was piled about three feet high along the shoulders, but the asphalt 
was clear. Suddenly, I heard a distinct "pop" as if someone very close by 
had crushed an empty Coke can. Everything looked good on the gauges, and the 
Spyder kept pulling up the long hill.  A half minute later came another 
"pop", this time followed by a loud "crunch" and the feeling that we had 
just hit a large pothole straight on.  Only...there had been no pothole. The 
Spyder kept on pulling.  I gingerly tried to move the gearshift outta 
fourth, but it was frozen in place, and my constricting gut told me what had 
happened without my even having to look in the engine compartment.  Got 'er 
stopped, and sure enough, the engine's front was resting just an inch from 
the pavement, held in place only by the tranny mount bolts and the swing 
axles. There was no traffic on the lonely mountain road, it was late in the 
afternoon and was getting colder.  I quickly raised up the engine front with 
the scissors jack and tied a loop of jumper cable around the motor mount and 
the trunk latch.  With the engine so suspended, we drove a further ten miles 
south to a small village, where, miracle of miracles, there was a ranch and 
feed store.  I bought ten feet of 1/8" steel cable and some cable clamps, 
and replaced the badly stretched jumper cable.  With the engine haging on 
woven steel we carefully drove another 200+ miles south to Mt. Goat Air 
Patch and called it a day. The next day's investigation revealed that I had 
done it to m'sef; when I had rebuilt the '66 mill, I had used Grade 5 vice 8 
engine mount bolts, and they had both sheared off in time...the wrong time!

Phil Brandt
CORSA since 1971
Austin, TX