Re-prep wheels or axles a year later?

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davidwilkie
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Re-prep wheels or axles a year later?

Post by davidwilkie »

For a winning car a year ago, any reason to re-prep the axles and/or hubs a year later (beyond just re-lubing)? The nail heads show some oxidation, but the axles themselves look pretty clean. For a non-Scout race, would certainly would prefer to save the work and just re-lube and go, plus the anxiety that any work on them this time around would be "less good" (e.g., slower) than the work that led to last year's results. Or is just a re-lube only a bad idea?
Speedster
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Re: Re-prep wheels or axles a year later?

Post by Speedster »

Do you have any times on the car? We re-lubed a 3 year old graphite car yesterday and ran it down the track just for fun. It won the District race 3 years ago. We did not pull the wheels. The owner said he kept it in a shoebox in a closet. Hob-E-Lube graphite on scout axles. It was .02 of a second slower than our new rail rider. Our new car is turning times where it has a chance to win the District race this year.
davidwilkie
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Re: Re-prep wheels or axles a year later?

Post by davidwilkie »

Nope, no times, only that it was a winner last year. Is 0.02 slower very much? Not sure if you're say "wow, it's almost as fast as the new car!" or "wow, the new car is much faster." Which do you mean?

I've pulled the axles and looked into the wheel bores. They don't look slick and shiny like newly prepped ones, but maybe that's from all the graphite that's been in them and that's a good thing?

Thanks!
Speedster
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Re: Re-prep wheels or axles a year later?

Post by Speedster »

Our new car would beat the 3 year old car by 2.6" if a car travels 1.3" in .01 of a second. The cars travel 31' from pin to timer the way I have the timer set on my Best track. Both cars were run in Lane 1 of my track. Being that close I suspect anything could happen on a longer track. If wheels were pulled and the prep done over who knows what might happen.
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Stan Pope
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Re: Re-prep wheels or axles a year later?

Post by Stan Pope »

Since you pulled the axles to inspect them, can you be confident that they will have the same orientation when they are reinstalled? Even different depth of insertion can affect times. And if the axles are not perfectly straight, rear axles can fight each other and, in so doing, slow your car.
Stan
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