Reply to "Pantera #4033 - the Banzai Runner swallows the carb stud..."

Garth,

Unfortunately, I had a similar (not exact) experience a couple years ago.

To make a very long and sickening story very short, the set nut I had on the carb stud had loosened up and fallen into the carb. The resulting "marble on a roulette wheel" sound at a very minimal 10 miles an hour was something I had never heard before (and never want to hear again). I shut the engine off and had the car towed home.

The first cylinder it entered was #8 and it cocked the piston in the bore, cracking the cylinder in two places before exiting through the valve to see what other damage it could do.

Upon teardown, I found that the nut had visited every single cylinder as the nut came apart, getting smaller and smaller as each piston beat the snot out of it.

That 5 cent nut cost $5000 in new engine work and made a door stop out of the block.

I kid you not, I said to myself just 20 seconds before the incident took place, "Man, the Pantera is running really great today!"

I no longer that a set nut on the carb. I welded the wing nut to the stud where it exits the top of the air cleaner. If the stud ever loosens up, it just spins and can never fall in the carb.

I sincerely hope nothing even remotely like that happened to you.