Listers,
Two points: whenever you experience a failure of this sort, please report it
to Ely Fishkin, the Secretary of Vintage Motorsports Council. He is
valiantly trying to create & maintain a database of vintage car failures, so
that it can be used to forewarn others of common failure points. Ely's
phone number is 303-753-1090, he has e-mail but I can't lay my hands on that
address right now.
Second point -- "it was magged OK eight years ago" -- EIGHT YEARS AGO?
Seems to me you ought to be magnafluxing all the critical suspension bits at
least once a season (including the ones that are supposedly not weak points
-- and it's hard to imagine which suspension parts AREN'T critical). IMHO
that's a minimum level of maintenance required for any form of racing. If
for some reason you don't want to do that, you should seriously reconsider
whether you ought to be racing at all.
We often hear certain rationalizations for lesser levels of maintenance --
"I'm not going that fast", "I don't race that often", etc etc. I view
those as excuses, and dangerous ones. I don't have statistically perfect
data, but over the course of attending about 100 vintage races I've never
really seen a correlation between speed and broken parts, or race frequency
and broken parts. A broken spindle can happen to anyone, anytime, so we all
need to be vigilant (and yes, even yearly magnaflux isn't a perfect
preventative).
Mark Palmer (who broke a front hub a while back -- even tho it was magged at
the beginning of the season)
>From: Fred Crowley <oldwolf@airmail.net>
>Reply-To: Fred Crowley <oldwolf@airmail.net>
>CC: vintage-race@autox.team.net
>Subject: Re: Broken Stub Axle (Spindle) on Austin-Healey 3000
>Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 21:47:26 -0500
>
>I've seen this before. Not common - but it can happen. I check the hubs on
>my
>3000 after every event (dye penetrant). Denis Welch in the UK has some
>stronger front hubs that I would seriously look into. It's a straight
>replacement for the stock hubs - better metal and a better radius where the
>stub meets the upright. Worth the money.
>
>Regards Fred
>
>"Gary Black (Hexagon Transportation Consultants)" wrote:
>
> > Listers,
> >
> > Just returned from the CSRG race at Sears Point. Thought some might be
> > interested to learn that I broke a front stub axle. Wheel fell off on
>the
> > cool-down lap. No damage to driver but some body damage from the wheel
> > passing by. The axle was crack-checked 8 years ago. Not a weakness on
>big
> > Healeys that I was aware of. Will crack-check the axles on a more
>regular
> > basis hereafter.
> >
> > Gary K. Black
> > HEXAGON TRANSPORTATION CONSULTANTS, INC.
> > 40 S. Market Street, Suite 600
> > San Jose, CA 95113
> > Tel: 408-971-6100
> > Fax: 408-971-6102
> > www.hextrans.com
>
>[demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type text/x-vcard which had a name
>of oldwolf.vcf]
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