The 440 in my Dodge pickup lost the thrust bearing due to a ballooned converter. I was pulling a trailer a lot and not cutting it any slack. The 440 would pull hard and the converter wasn't made for that much torque. Lucky I seen the crank movement before the converter came apart. This was also a 727.

My race car explode a converter from ballooning. It made a real mess of the transmission. This was back before the anti-ballon plates were not being used regularly. This one was a switch-pitch converter ( T400 trans ) and it didn't like the torque when locked up.

Joe