[PAUL K]

Originally Posted by gtofreek

I just have a few things to say about this.

Everything being offered against me is strictly speculation on all Joe's friends part. Don't get me wrong, I have respect for those guys, I met them and they seem very knowledgeable, and I like them. BUT none of them were here at our shop or took part in any of this build. They came along after the fact so everything they say is simply their opinions. They question whether I even took the engine apart. That's ridiculous. I took this engine completely down. Even took all the pistons off the rods to make sure there were no issues with the pins or pin bushings. I even posted pictures on here of the rods and crank. I didn't want any more problems with this engine. The mistake I made was I measured all the pistons at their gauge point, which just so happens to be about the most structurally strongest point of the skirt. They all measured good. What I FAILED to do was measure the skirt tips. They looked fine and there was nothing that drew attention or concern, but still I should have caught that. My mistake. At least my mistakes are few and far between, but I am not perfect.
The idea that someone put out there that I was trying to hide the skirt damage by Scotchbriting them is about the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Scotchbrite will not fix a bad skirt. If I was trying to scam Joe or hide something I would have just bought a new piston and no one would have ever known any different. I'm not a scammer, and I stand behind my work.
Fact of the matter is anytime I am putting used pistons back into any engine, I am not going to put them back in dirty and carboned up. So I clean them in the solvent tank with a Scotchbrite pad to get the carbon off. So now this is criminal? I then use a fine bristled SS brush to clean the friction reduction grooves on pistons like these. Once they are de-carboned, I give them 3-4 strokes each direction in an "X" pattern on the skirts with the Scotchbrite pad to help hold oil on them. Been doing it for over 20 years. To think I was trying to hide something is just stupid non-sense.

Also, some speculate that the skirt got damaged when the rod bearing went bad and the piston hit the head. Two things wrong with that.

1. The rod bearing would have had to have spun the lower shell up into the upper part of the rod. That did not happen. It never spun a bearing. It burned the bearing up, and it started to stick to the crank and it blackened the rod as the bearing got damaged. The crank wasn't even chewed up and it's a stock cast crank. It just had black streaks on it, so I replaced the crank with another one, along with a new rod. The piston never hit the head. Also, that would have left a mark on the head if it did, but it did not. Plus the bearing shell would have had to have worn down to less than .020" thick and if that happened, it would have spun. As soon as we heard it start knocking, we shut it down.

2. When you hurt a rod bearing, you do not send pieces into the intake manifold. What hurt this piston was something non-metallic going down the intake and into #5 cylinder. From there it got pinched between the piston and the corner of the combustion chamber hard enough to put a dent about .020" deep in the forged piston. It then banged the piston and head two more times only much lighter as the first hit probably broke it up some. That initial hit is what cocked the piston in the bore and pushed that skirt in. I think any knowledgeable engine person would agree with that. Then, considering the piston goes up and down the cylinder dozens of times per second at even very low speeds, it doesn't take but a second or two for it to pound the skirt even further inward. I say non-metallic because there is no other damage done to the bore, or no dings in the chamber or valves. If it was metallic, all those things would be dinged up. Anyone who does this stuff for a living can attest to that.

Some say it's awful coincidental that it was #5 piston that was damaged and that's the same bearing that went out. Not really, that's only a 1 in 8 chance. That's really pretty good odds. You want coincidental, I'll give you coincidental.
My dad grew up in Iowa, but in his older age, moved to Utah. Meets a women in Utah and they get married. About 6 months later they are talking about stuff and turns out they both grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. Turns out her parents bought my dads parents house from them and when she was a young girl moved into and grew up in that same house my dad grew up in and just moved out of. This was 50 some odd years before! To top it off, her birthday is the same day as my moms, only a different year! This is a 100% true story. Now that's what you call coincidental. If that could happen, something falling into #5 cylinder is easy peezy.

So now the question becomes when did this piece of whatever go down the intake.
Joe says it must have happened here at our shop because as soon as it started, it knocked. That's understandable for him to think that way, he is new to this all and doesn't know about engines. Can't blame him for that.

BUT, lets look at this from another perspective.

That piece could have fell into the intake here, but keep in mind, between Jeff and myself, we have over 60 years experience doing this. We know exactly what happens to an engine when something goes down the intake besides fuel and air. We take precautions to make sure this does not happen. Could we still have accidentally dropped something in there without knowing? Sure. Sh*t happens.
But it is just as easy and entirely possible that something fell in when Joe and friends or the shop that got it running were putting this all together. Something could have been stuck to the bottom of the carburetor and fell in, or any other way, something could have accidentally fell in. Then the first time they crank it over to start it, it goes into #5 cylinder and hurts the piston, and as soon as the engine starts, it knocks. But you see, no one wants to think it could have been them that did this, so the blame goes to the engine builder, in this case, me. Fact of the matter is we will never know when it happened, so in this case, Joe can be the victim, and I will be the bad guy and take the blame and pay for it even though I could just as easily be the victim here.

You people in the lynch mob need to consider this before you go throwing a rope around my neck and stringing me up from the nearest Oak tree. Remember, many innocent men were strung up by lynch mobs in the 1870's without any evidence of those persons guilt, only suspicions.

Seems plausible.... Except for the part about Iowa