mylesdw
Member
- Messages
- 794
This weekend I was close witness to the devastation caused by an exploding flywheel. Not my car but, would you believe, a bus that I was travelling in. Not a car flywheel spinning at 7000rpm but a six cylinder diesel spinning at no more than 3000rpm.
On a slight downgrade the driver made a downchange and there was a tremendous bang from the rear of the bus. I was sitting in the back seat and a lot of debris tore through the floor next to my feet and the bus filled with dust and smoke. We coasted to halt and everyone got out so see about 200m of road covered with bits of bus. The flywheel had exploded into bits about the size of your hand taking with it the entire bell-housing in similarly small pieces. The clutch cover plate had lost all its internals, there were springs on the road but we never found the pressure plate. The friction material was torn off the friction plate, we never found the plate itself or the release bearing. Under the bus was a huge gap between the engine and gearbox which was hanging on its front mountings. The starter motor was left hanging by its cable.
Inside the bus was a piece of flywheel about 1kg that had come though the steel floor and the plywood layer and the carpet.
Certainly food for thought for us sports car drivers who have a flywheel just next to our legs behind a flimsy panel.
On a slight downgrade the driver made a downchange and there was a tremendous bang from the rear of the bus. I was sitting in the back seat and a lot of debris tore through the floor next to my feet and the bus filled with dust and smoke. We coasted to halt and everyone got out so see about 200m of road covered with bits of bus. The flywheel had exploded into bits about the size of your hand taking with it the entire bell-housing in similarly small pieces. The clutch cover plate had lost all its internals, there were springs on the road but we never found the pressure plate. The friction material was torn off the friction plate, we never found the plate itself or the release bearing. Under the bus was a huge gap between the engine and gearbox which was hanging on its front mountings. The starter motor was left hanging by its cable.
Inside the bus was a piece of flywheel about 1kg that had come though the steel floor and the plywood layer and the carpet.
Certainly food for thought for us sports car drivers who have a flywheel just next to our legs behind a flimsy panel.
