Here's my 2 cents on this one:
While annual magnafluxing is good advice, I think most people only do it when
they have to dissassemble and/or rebuild something. Taking your suspension
completely apart once a year may not be practical in all cases. I certainly
don't do it, even though I know its a good idea.
What's more important, in my opinion, is the dissemination of such
information about possible weak links. When my Cortina broke a front hub
several years ago, we spread the work in the Cortina and vintage race
community. Almost every other race Cortina that was checked was found to
have cracked hubs! In those cases, corrective actions were taken. The point
of this example is that its the alert that causes people to take action to
check their cars, NOT a recommendation of annual magnafluxing. Perhaps an
annual check would have turned up this problem, but perhaps not, as many of
the other cars had been recently inspected without noticing this crack.
If the VMC's database gets organized and published, then each sanctioning
body can alert their members and tech inspectors to these items, and the
question can be asked at tech, "when was the last time you checked this?"
This subject is further complicated by the fact that there is a substantial
vintage race population that don't wrench on their own cars, and know more
about writing checks than checking cracks. If they and their
mechanics/builders don't have access to this info, then these items will go
unchecked until its too late.
The best plan, in my opinion, is widespread publication of known problems in
various cars and components.
Regards,
Myles H. Kitchen
1965 Lotus Cortina Mk1 #128
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