Can Rage in Engine Break a Connecting Rod?

Anything is possible, Mildred.

Rag.

Did you mean rag: a piece of waste cloth used to wipe your hands etc.? Of course any object in the cylinder that prevents the piston from completing a full stroke while under power is likely to damage the connecting rod. This, of course leads to the question of how a rag got into the cylinder in the first place.

Or, did you mean rage: uncontrolled anger. I have experienced rage quite often when working on automobile engines. I have found that rage quite often leads to things getting broken.

More often for me, rage just made me bleed somewhere.

I did manage to throw a 7/8" Craftsman combination wrench all the way across our cul-de-sac one time though.

Yes, engine rage has caused me several injuries, but, so far, no breakage.

Assuming OP means rag, then, yes, as others have said, a rag which prevents the piston from going to TDC would break a rod. (I have used a piece of rope down the spark plug hole to hold my chainsaw crankshaft from turning so I could replace the clutch/sprocket.)

If Godly enough.

"After trying every possible auto skill to start it"

I doubt that!

On the other hand, I know of a case where a hammer spent a few years in a compressor crankcase without causing any harm.

Scalpels left in surgery patients are not usually so benign though.

What's the cylinder bore on a forklift engine block? 75mm? give or take?

How can a rag fit completely into the cylinder's displacement volume so that no part is exposed or overhangs enough to be noticed when the head was placed? A gum wrapper or cigarette butt might have fallen unnoticed into the cylinder bore, not a rag.

Someone deliberately stuffed the rag into the cylinder. This has an m.o. of sabotage.

"A hammer spent a few years in a compressor crankcase…" quite interesting.

I have witnessed a catastrophic failure of huge nitrogen compressor which experienced a serious of failures initiated by the broken valves plate bits that got into cylinder.

A soldier, in his Will, wrote, "There is a bullet buried in my body since last war I fought. I came to know only after ten years, when I was diagnosed for a different ailment. The doctor told my wife and children that they would be mourning my tenth anniversary, had the bullet hit two inches above. I did not take his option of removing that bullet then, since I wanted to carry that war monument till my death. Now, at my deathbed, I am requesting my children to remove that bullet before burring me. My body would decompose after some time but that bullet may not, I do not want to add a foreign object from my foe to my soil."

So this really is a case of "losing the rag" (not sure if this has any meaning to anyone outside the UK)

OK I get it now...there was a rag found in cylinder number 3 after the head was removed. So if we assume its a diesel engine, and the servicing you mentioned had also removed the head...then it's possible someone either forgot a rag in the cylinder when they put the head back on, or left it there on purpose. The only other way I can figure that a rag could get in there is by someone stuffing it in through a glow plug hole! In any case a rag, even a small one, inside a diesel engine cylinder would certainly do some damage when you tried to start it!

Don't know what a "rage in an engine" is. Do know that if you use your foot as a dead blow hammer on the engine it will develop no rage in the engine but lots of it in you. Also that rage will last longer since it takes longer to repair your foot than it does an engine, especially connecting rods or heads.

Good Luck, Luck Salt

I believe you are referring to a rag left in the cylinder then installing the head which to me is almost impossible but you or your associates accomplished something that is almost impossible. Now this rag depending on size will when the piston is in upward motion create a blockage between the piston and the cylinder head. Something has to give and since the cylinder head stayed in place you now have the answer. Please do not work on any more engines even for free. You may also check the head for some bent or damaged valves.

If you meant rag, then yes.

If you meant rage (as in intense anger), then yes, especially if a moron attack led to placement of the rag.

If you reggae, then not so much, except if various parts got to dancin' around in a peculiar manner, man.