Actually, fatter spindles wouldn't necessarily help. The ideal situation
is for the axle to not be subjected to bending forces and single shear.
With the proposed solution there will still be quite a bit of bending
force, but a lot of it will be taken up by the spacer from bearing to
bearing and the axles never break and probably don't flex much past the
inner bearing. If there was a spacer on the back side of the inner bearing
the axle could be set up so that it was almost exclusively in tension,
which would be easy for the axle to bear (but it would be hell to set up).
Picture a bolt inside a big tube, holding it against a face plate. If the
bolt is very tight it's never subject to a bending force. The bolt could
be very thin because it would be in tension. The axles on a Vincent are
distressingly skinny, because the forks are girders instead of telescopic
so there's no bending force applied to the axle.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jack W. Drews [mailto:vinttr4@geneseo.net]
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 11:53 AM
To: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: TR brake improvement
think it's really healthy that a number of owners have expressed their
opinions pro and con. We're all in this together, and the last thing we
want is for some disaster to happen.
I've always had this problem with my TR4, using all sorts of combinations
of parts -- TR6 master cylinder, Tilton master cylinders with balance bar,
stock calipers, and Toyota calipers. I have installed brand new currently
available residual pressure valves on several cars including my own, and
they have done absolutely nothing to help the situation. By the way, these
are available in the marketplace primarily to help the street rodders,
whose master cylinders often are below the calipers, a quite different
problem from what we face. I attacked the problem vigorously after scaring
myself big time at Mosport earlier this year. I always pump up the brakes
for the next corner, but I was dicing with two other cars and didn't have
time to do it at the sharpest corner, and my pedal went almost to the
floor. Not a good experience.
When I was describing the proposed fix to a friend who owns an MGB (is
this
an oxymoron?) he said, "Oh, you mean like the spacer on an MGB?"
I find that this spacer and shim approach is used on MGB's and earlier MG
models, too. Take a look at the Moss MG catalog, page 104, item no's 60
and
62. The Bentley MGB manual describes the setting the endplay to .002 to
.004, and concludes with "tighten the nut to a torque loading of 40 to 70
lb. ft.". This torque is being applied to the inner bearing race and
spacer, not the rollers.
The same arrangement is used on Austin Healey 100-4's, Austin Healey
3000's, and a number of other British cars from this era. Why those bozos
didn't just put fatter spindles on these cars is beyond me.
uncle jack
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