It's good to hear that you're okay, man. You kept your cool and kept the car under control. That's awesome!

 

Thanks Rubehayseed :-)

I had a buddy a while back that had a low-budget Monte Carlo drag car. Basically a home built 383 sbc and a modified TH700R4 trans. He regularly spun that engine to 7500rpm; then one night whilst doing test hits out in Mexico; the trans casing split in half; which bent, twisted, and broke the driveshaft; which in turn tore up the floor board. Almost had my 1st heart attack that night.

There was also this that happened several years later with the Crown Vic...........




Made quite the racket when that rear diff let go. This last episode didn't really register with me.

 

The Jersey crete prob scraped a hole in a pipe or other component while touring your underbody.. m glad you are safe.

I'm surprised you weren't being stalked by predatory towers who spend all day every day trolling the CBs and looping on the same stretch of road

 

Damn! I have never seen a pumpkin cover split like that. Did you guys ever figure out what caused that? Some kind of retainer wasn't strong enough to handle all of the torque?

 

@ Derf; yah, they were probably doing that. I worked in the Iron Bound section of Newark almost 30 years ago; and my jobwas right down the street from an auto glass place. We think they hired the local hoodlum(s) to go around every once in a while and hammer people's windshields to drum up business during the slow times.

@ Rubehayseed that was when I think the spider gear got crunched and killed everything else. My Mom at the time was complaining about some noise; so I took the car out on the street to investigate. I didn't hear anything on the local roads; so I took it out on the highway; and that's when it let go. That was August of 2011. I had the car up on jacks when hurricane Irene hit. It was fortunate that happened, as we had 6"inches of water in our neighborhood during that time.

 

So I finally did the thing that my Dad told me never to (intentionally) do. While investigating some wind damage yesterday, I realized it was warm outside. So I called an audible and decided to change the oil in my Grand Marquis; as it was 2k overdue. I pulled the car onto the ramps and drained the oil. When I went into the basement to get my filter; I found the shelf empty. I was perplexed as I would have sworn that I ordered more after the last oil change. Looked everywhere, but no can do. So I went back into the basement and grabbed some cheap synthetic oil I have lying around and dumped it in there. This is the first time since I started working on cars that I changed the oil and not the filter.

 

I'm not sure I can continue to respect you, dude......😄😥😄

Seriously, just drain everything and keep it, swap the filter, and refill. Or put in some real oil. You'll be happy you did.

 

^^^^^^^I am putting together an Amazon order for oil filters; both the Grand Marquis and the Explorer.^^^^^^^^

Now when I look at that old split rear diff cover picture; I questioned why I don't have a rear sway bar on it now? I went out back Friday afternoon to check on things before the snow storm hit; and took a quick peek underneath. I saw that in my haste to get the rebuilt rear installed; I put one of the trailing arms in backwards. That will be one of the things I fix when I get that car running. It was not easy getting a police interceptor rear sway bar.

 

So the Grand Marquis is no more. Wrecked it 3 weeks ago on my way to work. I guess what happened back in October was a foreshadowing of what was to come; only this time, it was a car parked in the left lane of the highway at 4AM :-( I came out of it with a cut on my wrist and a slightly sore neck for a couple days. My Merc absorbed everything else. I took yesterday off of work to go down to the tow yard to pay the storage fee and grab the plates and my belongings. Thankful that it wasn't more serious than it was.

 

Glad you survived the event, sorry about the car.