We had some bad developments with the Votus this weekend. Dano was driving the car with a friend and decided to put the car to the test. As Dano says, it worked great at 74 mph. At 75 mph, our modified drive shaft couldn't take the spin. It failed. Spectacularly. Oops.
It more or less exploded like a grenade, shrapnel spitting out of the transmission tunnel and thankfully not hurting anyone. The brake line was severed, as was the gas line. So at high speed, all of a sudden Dano is behind the wheel with a car that has caught on fire because the gas line is spitting out gas. And the car has no brakes. He can't use the engine to brake since the drive shaft has just failed. And about a week before, to our dismay, we discovered that one cannot activate the handbrake whilst buckled in. So Dano, in a car going 70mph on fire with no brakes, had to take off his seat belt to pull the handbrake. He did it! He's OK, as was the passenger (Peter).
We knew immediately the cause of the failure. We had taken the stock drive shaft out of the P1800 and shortened it. We had welded it up on a lathe, so we know it was properly centered. The problem was that it wasn't balanced. This is something we had meant to do but didn't get around to before it punked out on us. Here are some pictures of what happened as a result...
This is a piece of shredded bodywork from the transmission tunnel.
More shredded bodywork - this is the top of the tranny tunnel.
This is the right side of the tranny tunnel - you can see what the explosive power of the failed transmission did to the aluminum. And don't forget - this aluminum is on the outside of a steel cage. See below...
Here's the inside of the tranny tunnel. This is pretty steel. I must say I'm happy to see that the welding didn't fail, but rather the steel bent. Yikes! You can see the end of the shift linkage.
Here's the shift linkage cover - it was completely torn off by the failing drive shaft.
A wider-angle view of the same vantage.
The shifter and various other shrapnel.
Part of the shredded drive shaft...
More of the same.
It more or less exploded like a grenade, shrapnel spitting out of the transmission tunnel and thankfully not hurting anyone. The brake line was severed, as was the gas line. So at high speed, all of a sudden Dano is behind the wheel with a car that has caught on fire because the gas line is spitting out gas. And the car has no brakes. He can't use the engine to brake since the drive shaft has just failed. And about a week before, to our dismay, we discovered that one cannot activate the handbrake whilst buckled in. So Dano, in a car going 70mph on fire with no brakes, had to take off his seat belt to pull the handbrake. He did it! He's OK, as was the passenger (Peter).
We knew immediately the cause of the failure. We had taken the stock drive shaft out of the P1800 and shortened it. We had welded it up on a lathe, so we know it was properly centered. The problem was that it wasn't balanced. This is something we had meant to do but didn't get around to before it punked out on us. Here are some pictures of what happened as a result...
This is a piece of shredded bodywork from the transmission tunnel.More shredded bodywork - this is the top of the tranny tunnel.
This is the right side of the tranny tunnel - you can see what the explosive power of the failed transmission did to the aluminum. And don't forget - this aluminum is on the outside of a steel cage. See below...
Here's the inside of the tranny tunnel. This is pretty steel. I must say I'm happy to see that the welding didn't fail, but rather the steel bent. Yikes! You can see the end of the shift linkage.
Here's the shift linkage cover - it was completely torn off by the failing drive shaft.
A wider-angle view of the same vantage.
The shifter and various other shrapnel.
Part of the shredded drive shaft...
More of the same.
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