Bob Lang wrote:
> If not, the list had an "axle fest"
> a few years ago and one guy had a bunch of alloy hubs made and another
> guy had a bunch of axles made... this was not an inexpensive excercise.
As a matter of interest, it was these hubs and these axles that were in my car
when
the axle broke. I continue to applaud the efforts of the people who were
involved in
making these parts (myself included). It was a huge effort, well intentioned,
and
very professionally done.
The problem is that we do our "testing" during use -- as opposed to all major
manufacturers who, despite bringing the best minds to bear on engineering
problems,
then test parts like these for a few million cycles at high loads to determine
whether the theoretical design will work in real life. I worked in that
environment
during my professional career, and was always amazed at the failures that
occurred
to very well-engineered parts.
Looking at my axle breakage with "refreshed eyes", I now theorize that the
problem
is entirely different from what we suspected it to be -- which was 40 year old
materials with millions of cycles on them. In a separate message, for the
technophobes, I'll advance that theory.
I think this has been a great discussion, but I realize that some folks aren't
at
all interested, and I somewhat apologize for that, but I think we will have
safer
cars as a result.
TR6 -- 29 and still running
TR4 -- 39 but no longer racing
uncle jack -- temporarily sidelined
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