OUCH - Tailshaft let go....

[hainzy]

Check this out. Got this from another site, but apparently this brand spankin rebuilt ute was driving along when the tailshaft let go (well more than let go), and pierced the fuel tank causing a fire.

Terrible thing to have happen to ya. They had no insurance either. OUCH!

Has anyone ever seen a tailshaft twist like that? Looks like it failed spectacularly!! Would it have been the wrong size for the engine? Or a diff failure or something/ Looks pretty nasty..

[maxsandman]

Yes, I have a ute fuel tank with a fist sized hole in it from a tailshaft breaking. But no fire was involved, luckily.

cheers
Max

[Vombil]

gutting- literally. looks like a tank full of fuel on board. maybe motor, box seized or diff? tailshaft doesn't do much. if it dropped at either end it would just drag id imagine

if you can't afford to replace it.................insure it

[Valencia]

Yeah seen it on another forum still cant believe some people don't insure there cars
sad news either way

[Vombil]

their ;)

[Alien DNA]

Apparently the shaft smashed into a trans line and it spewed over the hot exhaust and went up.....some heart breaking stuff

[Vombil]

this is getting even stranger... trans lines are almost a foot forward of the shaft

[HZSM50]

Broke my heart seeing it on FB.
Tragedy!!!

[wbute]

A dropped front uni(which it isn't as you can still the uni on the shaft) will pole vault a car as it digs into the road. That's why you fit a tailshaft loop to anything that makes power. A rear dropped one will allow the shaft to flop around like mad until it falls out of the trans onto the road. I would say that's the most likely and that's where the trans oil would have come from. There is next to no chance it would have ignited on the exhaust I reckon. More likely a spark lighting the fuel leaking out of a ruptured fuel tank.
Fairly amazing if it twisted the shaft up though. It must have been made from exhaust pipe.

[Blue victor]

That would suck, not just for the lost $$ but as we all know, the hours upon hours put into a restoration.....grinding back a weld, sanding till your fingers bled etc.

Saw a Navara 4WD twin cab roll in the 90s due to a rope holding motorbikes come loose. I was about three cars back coming from Healesville to Lillydale area (Vic) when that flapping rope we all saw in traffic for the last 20 clicks, finally wrap around the tailshaft and possibly handbrake cable and just lock up the rear at 90kmh. I always think of it when I see a loose rope and try and alert the driver who usually looks at me like WTF?

Any theories as to why the nosecone is inverted? Would that be fire related and just dropped? The fire looks all underneath so I don't think they smashed it to get the bonnet open to get to it