[Fot] Summers axle breakage

[Barr, Scott]

Well, good new and bad news.  The good news? I still have one good Spitfire Summers Bros. axle.  The bad news is that I have one broken one.  

More good news is that #49Blue stayed shiny-side up rather than go ass over tea kettle as it seemed momentarily inclined to do.  All I've lost (that I know so far) is a brake drum, backing plate, etc.  I feel certain I'll be able to find the wheel and tire out in the weeds after the last session of the afternoon.  And I'd imagine my brake drum is still attached to the wheel.

The point of all this rambling is that those of you who have those Summers axles ought to take a looooooong hard look at them once in a while.  I've got maybe a dozen full weekends on them and perhaps 6000 partial weekends.  On initial inspection, it appears that there are beach marks indicating that this axle has been cracking for a while and chose today to fail entirely, breaking off just inside of the outer bearing race.  Hard to say how long, but not long enough for the cracked bit so have any rust or discoloration.  

Chuck Gee, would you mind giving me a shout some time this next week about your Spit axles?

Scott B.