[Fot] Beaten by equipment

[Mike Harmuth]

I had a new failure this weekend at Lime Rock with the Spitfire. 1st lap of
the weekend, doing a sedate warm up around the track under full course
yellow. When I start down the front straight and put it in 4th gear,
there's a big vibration and ugly noises (short video attached). I was flat
towed back to the paddock and when I took the tranny hump cover off, I
found the shifter had snapped (see picture). A little more poking around
and I discovered the aluminum bell housing was cracked from side to side
and two bearing caps were missing from the tranny end of the driveshaft u
joint (replaced over the winter).

I'm going to pull the tranny, driveshaft and diff to see what damage has
been done. In the past, at the same spot at Lime Rock, I had a problem with
the diff that 1st broke the tranny output housing. I didn't realize the
problem was downstream, it locked up again (broken tooth inside floating
around) and took out the rear  1/2 shaft u joints putting me in the wall.

After rewatching the video, many times, I suspect the broken shifter was
the cause of the problem, (2 gears at once?) not a result but I'm pretty
sure disassembly of the tranny will confirm this. My question is, has
anyone had the shifter beak like this and if so, was it caused by something
else or was it just metal fatigue?

Other related info, new engine (1296) , more power than the old one, less
than an hour on it. Zero track or dyno time, this was the 1st time the car
saw 4th gear. All drivetrain fluids changed over the winter. No disassembly
but cover off inspections and hand turning tranny and diff felt normal,
last used in October 2017 with no issues, with old, worn out engine.

I will get this going for the K Cup, see you there.

thanks
mike h

​
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 Front.mp4
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tyfrdBh6_c02yqpi-PT_Y8iRt03W_icY/view?usp=drive_web>
​
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