Horrible Mechanical Failures: Looks Like the Tin Man's Undies After Taco Tuesday

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Horrible Mechanical Failures: Looks Like the Tin Man's Undies After Taco Tuesday

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

My god. Do you happen to have a link to more info about that?

# ¿ Feb 2, 2010 04:06

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 13:49

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

dietcokefiend posted:

Knowing how some old people are, he probably just floored it and redlined it for a while stressing something already on the fritz. poo poo cascaded from that point, and not really sure what I guess the end result is a fireball.

Potentially stupid question, but why don't engines have some sort of thermal protection that shuts them down before they get hot enough to catch on fire or sustain damage? I mean clearly there's a temp sensor since an overheat light comes on, why doesn't it just shut off?

# ¿ Jan 11, 2011 21:10

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

BlackShadow posted:

No surprises there, since microwaves work by exciting water molecules in food to generate friction (and therefore, heat). There's no water in those TV units, so there's no reason it should increase in temperature.

This is rather common misconception, but Microwaves don't act on water in particular, they'll heat any material, they're just most efficient on dipole molecules like water, fat, and sugars. It's perfectly possible to melt glass in a microwave.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 03:35

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Longinus00 posted:

You can detect rail breaks because of loss of conductivity but how would you go about detecting that situation before it causes an accident?

I'm no train guy, but I've been reading a lot about this while studying NTSB accident reports. My understanding is that they are really, really careful when laying the track to compensate for the current rail temperature at the time it's laid, as well as the expected temperature range it's going to encounter. Aside from trying to prevent it from happening, the engineer is just supposed to watch the track ahead of him, though usually these problems don't develop instantly and the train ahead will often report feeling "rough rail" as they went over.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2011 22:20

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Splizwarf posted:

Please explain. Sounds interesting.

The NTSB Publications website has all of the accident reports they've ever done in the last few decades, you learn a lot of interesting things about the kind of common themes you see in accidents. Rail problems due to expansion or contraction figure in pretty regularly in train accidents. I keep thinking I might post a GBS thread with some of the more interesting ones if I ever stop being lazy.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2011 20:07

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Would a local fire department have insurance on its vehicles to cover damage like that, or would they be big enough to self-insure?

# ¿ Apr 9, 2011 19:31

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

JD Brickmeister posted:

I really find it hard to believe that is actually fuel. Yes, I understand that if you heated it it would get less viscous and flow better, but how do you pump a million gallons of that goo into the ship's fuel tank? Do you have to heat it then too? How could it possibly flow into the fuel lines and whatnot?

Yes, it has to be ~100 degrees F when sitting in storage, has to be heated to over 150F to be pumped, and has to be 220-260F to atomize properly for combustion. I'm actually a little surprised you can use that low-grade oil in internal combustion engines, I thought it had to be burned in boilers because of the water and ash content, but I guess that's what the purifiers are for.

# ¿ May 13, 2011 21:07

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

JD Brickmeister posted:

He was using a Dremel.

I knew they had a wide variety of attachments, but drat!

# ¿ Jun 5, 2011 07:51

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

To be fair, the Silverado overran the rear of the Corolla, so all of the energy was absorbed by the trunk lid and contents. I don't really see how that could be prevented. I've read a bit about overrun protection in train design, and even if you wanted to spend the weight I don't see a lot of structure in the area that the vehicle was hit. But yeah, your friend's right to own a large vehicle is now rescinded.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2011 04:19

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

MikeyTsi posted:

No, an ACCIDENT is when you poo poo your pants or a tree hits your house. Your friend here got himself in a COLLISION.

Techically it's an ALLISION since the other car wasn't moving, a collision is when both are moving. I'm not trying to be pedantic, I just thought it was a really cool word/distinction when I learned the difference so I'm spreading the joy.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2011 08:34

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Blackdawgg posted:

I wonder why the hell we rely on sight to signal thousands of tons of weight to stop in inclement weather and lighting. Track signals should be relayed to an in cab display with actual signals serving as only a backup for failure.

The problem is that the engineer is asleep, and the only way to fix that is with a Positive Train Control system that monitors the progress of the train and stops it if it's somewhere it shouldn't be, but those are expensive so that won't happen. Having the engineer acknowledge signals via a button in the cab is comparatively cheap and easy, but a sleeping engineer can pretty easily do a simple action like that, like how the engineer in this case acknowledged the alerter.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2011 21:14

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Stupid question, what do you have to do to cause that big of a jump-related fuckup, and why did it do more than just blow a fuse somewhere?

# ¿ Oct 29, 2011 05:21

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Wibbleman posted:

Heres something that just happened.

Helicopter crashes on a live camera feed.

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/raw-video-helicopter-crashes-in-viaduct-4561143

It was lucky there was a newscrew recording it, no one was injured thankfully.

This was deleted for some reason. Here's an updated link to a shorter video.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2011 04:49

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

InitialDave posted:

While that is admirable in its own way, they seem to be missing the fact that, as a maker of new cars, pleasing a "customer" who self-evidently isn't a customer of new cars serves little business purpose.

Making customers happier makes far more money long term than forcing someone to buy a new product before they want to, even if you could somehow guarantee they'd buy your product.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2011 01:32

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

How much more would it ACTUALLY cost to make the rust-prone components out of stainless steel instead?

# ¿ Dec 19, 2011 08:31

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

I'm aware that stainless isn't used because it's more expensive, but I'm interested in knowing how much it would actually add to the price of a vehicle. It seems obvious that the rust-prone components would be a small fraction of the vehicle's overall cost (with most of the cost going to the mechanical and electronic components), so even multiplying the cost of those steel components several times would result in a small increase as a percentage of the total cost.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2011 09:41

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

kastein posted:

e: I looked up the galvanic series in seawater (yay northeastern salted roads...) and steel is four steps up from aluminum, so aluminum will corrode, producing gobs of oxide that ends up packing into the threads like an all-natural loctite.

It's not a matter of "steps", it's a matter of the difference in the Anodic index, or the electrochemical voltage produced. Steel and Aluminum have an Anodic index difference of 0.05-0.10v, while up to 0.15v is considered safe for a harsh environment (salt water). That doesn't mean you won't see corrosion, it just means you're not seeing significant galvanic corrosion, per se.

It does seems like it would be a relatively cheap solution to just attach magnesium or zinc beads in strategic locations to act as sacrificial anodes, however.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2012 08:28

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

sharkytm posted:

Hate to tell you this, but they use aluminium anodes to project steel bulkheads, and I can tell you from first hand experience that steel with corrode aluminium. I work on an aluminum boat, and we get pitting from the steel rivet mandrels that get left on deck.

Aluminum is a perfectly functional sacrificial anode for stainless steel, with a difference of the Anodic index of 0.30-0.45V. Might that be the difference?

# ¿ Apr 9, 2012 00:09

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

sharkytm posted:

The Wikipedia article liked earlier shows aluminum anodes.

I don't want to pretend to be some sort of anodic protection expert, but I've always heard of Magnesium and Zinc being used to protect mild steel, though based on the anodic series Aluminum would work to protect stainless steel.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2012 02:22

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

BlackMK4 posted:

My sister needs to stop driving.

What happened there?

# ¿ Aug 21, 2012 01:41

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

CommieGIR posted:

So what actually ignited? I thought it was a fire in the electrical generating system?

CNN posted:

Washington (CNN) -- The fire that crippled the Carnival cruise ship Triumph started with a leak in a fuel-oil return line running from one of the ship's engines, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday.

Leaking oil hit a hot surface, starting the fire, said Teresa Hatfield, the lead investigator for the Coast Guard. Hatfield said there was no indication the leak in a flexible hose section was intentional.

"Fire suppression was immediately activated by the crew, first by waterfog and then by (carbon dioxide). They did a very good job," Hatfield said.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2013 23:15

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

EightBit posted:

The steam itself can cause pretty nasty burns on contact, not to mention that there is coolant going everywhere; you absorb ethylene glycol through your skin and lungs, if you can smell it you are slowly being poisoned.

Ethylene glycol isn't really an inhalation risk, you have to drink it to get enough into your body to be toxic. It doesn't evaporate well and even in steam it is irritating enough that it's difficult to inhale a toxic dose if you have the opportunity to run somewhere you can actually breathe.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 21:27

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

MrLonghair posted:

Saw the driver pull out of that poor excuse of a drive-way with a sharp 4" drop from sidewalk to pavement with a nasty crunch one evening, now it's sat there like that for a week. That's gotta suck.

Here's a sweet video of the president's limo bottoming out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl25S7hy8mo

It's less amusing when it happens to a semi carrying an oversized load on an at-grade railroad crossing.

Did you know that they don't even bother to do a drug/alcohol test on the crew when a train hits a vehicle at a level crossing, as a special exception to normal rules any time there is a transportation accident? It's considered a normal hazard when driving a train. I seem to recall reading NTSB statistics saying the average train engineer has four vehicle or pedestrian strikes in their career, but I could be making this up.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2014 02:26

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

azazello posted:

Toyota lost me forever with their sudden acceleration ECU bullshit. http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer-firmware--Bad-design-and-its-consequences

I can pretty much guarantee you that serious software bugs affecting safety are in no way unique to Toyota, this was just the first case that caught the mainstream media's attention.

# ¿ May 15, 2015 16:43

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Geirskogul posted:

Everyone watch The Pentagon Wars, and weep realizing that every ~~military vehicle~~ project ever is designed like that.

Fixed this for you. Also, I was going to link to the clip, but gently caress that here's the full movie on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDYpRhoZqBY

# ¿ Jul 12, 2015 20:04

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Have any scientific tests ever found meaningful differences between brands of gas? A number of media and consumer organizations have paid for tests that found no differences, which is consistent with what we know about the fuel industry, so it doesn't seem reasonable to put much stock in rumors from friends-of-friends.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 21:15

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

literally a fish posted:

It seems more like the German automakers carefully constructed tests that would make it ignite so they'd have an excuse not to pay for the transition to the new refrigerant.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2016 03:21

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

totalnewbie posted:

Yes, but that's what you do: put systems (in this case, cars) in worst case scenarios and determine the outcome. If the outcome is fiery death, then it is not acceptable.

H110Hawk posted:

https://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/news/newsarchiv/2014/kornath_refrigerant.html

I mean I'm no scientist but I think I'll stick to slightly warmer/ozonedepletier AC than risk inhaling that in the event of an otherwise non-fatal engine fire.

Note that independent testing by actual scientists who do not have a vested interest in the results of the tests and actually care deeply about safety (like the SAE) took that into account and showed that it's safe. A small group of German automakers want to get out of paying to upgrade their refrigeration system so are bullshitting that it isn't. Do you really believe the automakers are taking your side against a government conspiracy to make your car use an unsafe refrigerant?

# ¿ Apr 21, 2016 04:26

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

TotalLossBrain posted:

Squished guy was also the sole owner and employee of that company.

Given that his brother was also an owner-operator of his own one-truck company, I wonder if this was more of a responsibility-evading legal arrangement for the mine? "Employee Safety? We don't have any employees. We partner with about a hundred independent contractors, you should ask them about their safety procedures. It should be easy since they all have only one employee!"

# ¿ Jun 8, 2016 22:56

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Computer viking posted:

This is basically the core of the Uber controversies as well, isn't it?

It's one way of looking at the relationship between Uber and its drivers. In theory a key difference is that Uber drivers are casual, in that they can choose to work wherever and whenever they want, Uber doesn't assign them territory or hours or require them to work a certain number of hours per week, which overall are elements of control and oversight that form an employer-employee relationship. From another perspective, someone who supports their family driving for Uber and who gets their account closed unexpectedly is probably going to feel very much like they lost their employment, and it will have similar consequences on their life. From a public policy perspective, we can't have companies taking advantage of employees by reclassifying them as independent contractors, but the casual service model pioneered by Uber offers extremely compelling efficiency benefits to both users and providers so it's probably not best to just ban it.

I would say that the core of the Uber (and other "sharing economy" services) controversy is that they don't neatly fit into any existing regulatory paradigms, and how an individual participant in those platforms is best classed can depend on their choices of how they use the platform. When you consider the influence of Taxi companies and other rent-seekers that don't want their monopolies hosed up, you will get endlessly dueling think-pieces with an ulterior motive.

E: I hope this was a decent answer without going too D&D or injecting my own opinions.

Alereon fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Jun 9, 2016

# ¿ Jun 9, 2016 22:10

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Elephanthead posted:

I fill my tires with hydrogen so they are lighter and I go faster, (for a little ways anyway).

If you actually did this (or helium too) your tires would explode from the massive pressure increase when they warmed up, is that correct? Or is the difference not actually that extreme?

# ¿ Jul 25, 2016 22:05

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Enourmo posted:

It wouldn't be any different from air, actually. According to ideal gas law (which is close enough to reality to work here) P*V=n*R*T. All you need to know from that is that, in a fixed volume with a fixed mass of gas, absolute pressure varies directly with absolute temperature, and all the heat generated in a tire is from sidewall/tread flexing as the wheel rotates. Googling suggests that at highway speeds tires get about 50 degrees F above ambient, so if you go from 95 to 145, or 555 to 605 on the Rankine scale, that's a 9% increase in temp, and thus pressure.

For some reason I thought that Hydrogen and Helium diverged significantly from the ideal gas law because of their extremely low atomic weights, but apparently it is the exact opposite!

# ¿ Jul 26, 2016 01:35

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

iwentdoodie posted:

Update on exploding car: team says the caliper broke and was grinding the wheel. The explosion was indeed the tire going boom. Nascar released the car back to the team.

Do race tires not have fuse plugs or safety valves, or did it just not work? I am thinking of airliners, which heat their brakes well past red hot during aborted takeoffs, but have plugs that release the pressure before the tires blow. As in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g6UswiRCF0

# ¿ Aug 7, 2016 18:56

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Godholio posted:

90s and early 2000s GMs are kind of known for that. Although there are a LOT more unique keys than there were in the 60s and 70s, wear and tear on the 90s locks makes them pretty susceptible to basically being "picked" by a similar key.

At least twice during my childhood we accidentally unlocked the wrong identical-looking vehicle and started loading groceries before we realized it didn't have our stuff in it.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2016 23:12

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

revmoo posted:

Lpt; co detectors have a shelf life on their sensors. Why they dont start beeping like a smoke detector after 5 years I have no idea.

All CO detectors since 2009 do alert at end of life.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2017 05:37

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 13:49

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

You can re-attach soles with barge cement, works surprisingly well if you catch it early! It's a lot harder once you've started to get crud under the sole. It's getting harder and harder to find shoes made with something other than polyurethane soles, which start breaking down in around a month no matter how little wear you put on them.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2017 20:13

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