Tigges Talk - Road Trip Days 7, 8 & 9 - September 2023

Monday we awoke to another day of drizzles. We landed the trailer in its winter resting spot along the driveway and managed to get the car unloaded, wrestle the body off and roll the chassis into the shop between showers. You must do your best to make light of the situation, there were humorous comments about being careful to not scratch the paint, but they were tempered with serious comments about being careful to not damage the only salvageable portions of the body, primarily the mounting trees that fit the chassis perfectly.

Once in the shop we started the stripping process. Everything came off the car piece by piece. It was a methodical top-down front to back process with parts staged by what needed to happen to them. The bulky rear slicks & wheels went back into the trailer for storage, while all the safety stuff like the blower & transmission restraints and seat belts went in a pile to go back to Taylor for repair & recertification. Interestingly, NHRA technical had removed all the certification tags after the wreck, from the belts to the chassis & body.

We were happy to find some parts of the car undamaged, the blower, mag drive & gear drive looked great and the… well, that stuff looked great. This wreck, the worst Team Tigges has had is certainly its most costly as well. Each layer of disassembly provided clues to the condition underneath. For instance, all the spark plugs came out easily except for #3. Sure enough, when we got the heads off the #3 piston had caught both valves in overlap, broke their heads off, hammering the valve seats out & really beating up that combustion chamber.


Some damage provides clues… we knew one of the chambers was bad because we found pieces of valve seat in the oil pan back at the track. Others are invisible, like the broken rocker stand that looked perfect when we took the valve covers off but was split in two when it was removed. The #3 & 4 rod failure caused the most collateral damage, mushrooming the lifters and beating up the block around the cam journal. We even found a rod bolt thread imprint on one of the cam lobes. Careful disassembly prevented further damage, minimizing the future costs of block repair.

Having everyone there make work go quickly, as many tasks such as removing the blower and short block could be done manually with multiple hands. Tanks were drained & removed; the rear chassis extension was taken off as a unit & all the wiring was removed with the timer box. The seat, driver box sheetmetal & undertray were removed, along with the axles, hubs, discs & calipers & third member. On the front of the car, the steering rod, tie rod & damper & complete A-arm assemblies with spindle, wheel & brakes were removed & set aside.

By the time we were done work on Monday the chassis was pretty much stripped & ready for the jig. The only remaining parts on it were the steering box assembly, gauges, some brake & throttle hardlines, the master cylinders, the motor plate & the rear end housing, which indexes the chassis to the jig. We lowered the front of the chassis into a drip tray & removed the upper frame rail plugs to allow them to drain overnight. Done for the day. We were all tired but had completed more than expected. It was an emotionally depressing day. Lots of investment and hard work exposed to ruin.


Tuesday morning, we were all back at it. Long time readers will remember the construction of the chassis jig when the car was initially built back in 2016. We did this to check & repair the chassis in the unlikely event of a crash. Unfortunately, it was time to use it. Three of us carried the chassis out of the shop where the upper frame rails were agitated & rinsed inside with lacquer thinner to remove any oil or fuel reside that could ignite during welding repair. The jig was taken down from storage, the stand legs were tack welded into place, then it was positioned, leveled & lashed down in the shop. The moment of truth had arrived. We carried the chassis back into the shop & set it in the jig.


The eye plays tricks. We were encouraged by how closely the lower frame rails fit the jig. They were less than 5/8” out & could easily be forced into the saddles. The right upper rail had the most damage. It was there that the mass of the engine was forced when the car impacted the wall. Overall, the chassis condition was better than we expected. It was encouraging that the motor plate came out without argument.

One of the things I like best about working with Tigges Racing is the level of expertise in design & fabrication. Over the course of the next few hours there was discussion of metal memory, strength of diagonals & uprights, measurements & more measurements, heat shrinkage and non-stressed integrity. By the end of the day the right angle grinder, porta-power & come-along had done their duty & the lower rails politely sat in the saddles. Uprights & diagonals had been cut, additional raw pipe ordered & the plan to make the upper rails perfect was in place. The chassis had been saved.


In parallel to this work Rick was doing the unenviable task of body part recovery. This involves identifying the design construction of the front & rear body mounting trees and selectively cutting the body away to retrieve the parts. This is nasty, dirty work.


The shortblock disassembly was also completed. Unloaded excess RPM is an amazingly powerful force. The vibrations & harmonics it creates are barely comprehensible. We torque the main caps & side bolts to 135 ft/lb. None of them exceeded 20 ft/lb at disassembly. The vibration had unscrewed the fasteners. The four rods that remained in the engine all had bent rod bolts. The crank looked pretty good and there were no blackened journals. We wrapped up the day by putting the bare block & motor plate back into the chassis & doing some cross measurements. The chassis was good to within a 1/16”. One little victory.

Wednesday was a short day. The adrenaline was worn off & the body & mind were tired. I finished the body disassembly, amazed at the heat that Fred seen in the crash. Black anodizing turns orange when exposed to high heat. You can see in the picture below that all of the sheet metal in the driver box is bright orange. What is left of the body is stacked up behind the driver box.


While I was doing that work, Fred & Mike prepared the shop for the next steps of repair, tube fabrication & chassis welding. Mike also worked on the final disassembly of the heads & block for return to BAR for repair. I had brought the transmission in from the trailer lounge the day before and Fred couldn’t resist putting his eyes on the origin of all this destruction. As the Lenco came apart we identified the primary failure point, the planetary drum. This dessert plate size part ended our season.


Before dark, all of us were back home, our truncated road trip over. It was now time for racing hangover recovery. In honor of Eric Medlin, wifey & I ate ice cream… ‘No one can be sad eating ice cream.’

Team Tigges will be back.

Chris Saulnier – Team Tigges
Mechanic Falls, Maine

 

Nice Rush reference there Chris, re: the chassis w/in 1/16th!!!
And yes on the ice cream!!! His accident was the first of two fatal accidents I've seen in person (Mark Niver Seattle). I need a lifetime supply of ice cream!!!
Let's Go Team Tigges in 2024!!!

 

CHARLES MCLAWS HERE IN WINSLOW ARIZONA, THE OLD GUY FROM ARIZONA JUST CHECKING ON YOU GUYS TO SEE HOW YOUR ALL MAKING OUT GETTING READY FOR 24