> Suppose your wheel bearing was a little loose.
> Now you clamp the binders on hard and hit a bump,
> or turn, or otherwise apply a lateral force.
> Instead of the wheel bearings taking the load,
> the rotor will take the load, causing it to break
> (not brake). Sound plausible?
Bob,
I think you might have it here, except for the wheel bearing part.
A couple of years ago I started having a problem with the right-front
spindle. A tech inspector noticed it first: "Hey, you've got a problem
here, and it's not the wheel bearings either." What I had going on was
noticeable play if you grab the wheel and rock it top-to-bottom, but
none when you rock it left-to-right. It wasn't bad enough for them to
say I couldn't run that day, but clearly I needed to watch it and fix it
if it got worse. I watched it. It got worse. And when I finally tore
into it I found that the distance piece that goes onto the spindle first
had eaten into the upper and lower portions of the stub axle carrier. I
tried shims, but couldn't get them to stay in place, and the fix was to
replace the stub axle carrier.
Five or six months ago, I started to notice the same type of play on the
left side, and immediately put replacing the left-side carrier on my
to-do list. Since this is the side that broke the rotor, it looks like
this job just jumped to the front of the queue.
By the way, I called Dale Akuszewski yesterday afternoon and asked about
vented rotors. He does have them in stock at $240.00 for the kit.
Apparently there's more to it than just the rotors; some
washers/spacers, "a whole bag full of stuff" as he said. The number is
909/799-2099 if anybody is interested. I checked the SCCA SOLO II rule
book last night, and the vented rotors would be an unauthorized
modification in the Street Prepared classes--go straight to Prepared
class and run against guys like Barry, Tom, et al . . . nooooooo, thank
you!
Ramon
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