I won all the races in my pack race and I used the lemon pledge. Thanks guys! I also glued in my axles. Now the next race is coming up is there a way to reapply the lemon pledge? Is there a need to reapply? The last race was about 2 months ago. Should I just apply more graphite and not worry about it? Anything else I should be doing to prep for this race I haven't thought of?
Going to council level race but what about the lemon pledge?
- Thread starter pinewoodcarfan
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In my opinion, glueing in the axles is one of the worst things you can do. Can you get them out? If not, then I’d say no to the pledge because I don’t see a way to do it cleanly. If you do add graphite, go easy, don’t go crazy with it. The one thing you can do is clean your wheels. Most racers use a nail file if some kind, but even spraying some windex on a cloth of some kinds and wiping the wheels off will do you wonders if you have a lot of graphite on the outside of the wheels.
You can pick up a 6 step nail buffer @ any CVS or Walgreens.
We have used the same graphite prep over 3 months, 1 race each month of 8 laps each before the prep gave up.
Just add graphite, tap & spin till it comes thru.
Like T-Bone said, clean up the treads & work as clean as you can. The good news is you have already been thru the break in stage & sometimes our cars get faster after they sit a couple of weeks & fresh graphite is applied.
Roll the car over a smooth hard surface & lister to what’s goin on, shhhhhhh is good, gravel sound is bad. Work the wheels & add more graphite.
Good Luck
We have used the same graphite prep over 3 months, 1 race each month of 8 laps each before the prep gave up.
Just add graphite, tap & spin till it comes thru.
Like T-Bone said, clean up the treads & work as clean as you can. The good news is you have already been thru the break in stage & sometimes our cars get faster after they sit a couple of weeks & fresh graphite is applied.
Roll the car over a smooth hard surface & lister to what’s goin on, shhhhhhh is good, gravel sound is bad. Work the wheels & add more graphite.
Good Luck
I like the idea of cleaning the wheels, I'll do that. I was was thinking about running it on the treadmill and my alignment board a little, would it gain anything from more treadmill time?
If I didn't glue the axles would reapplying the pledge be worthwhile?
should I put it back on the treadmill? I am going to give the wheels a spin right now and see if they still spin for a 30 count or so. I bought a whole pack of those files and they worked great for the wheels but I don't know what I would do with them at this point.
NOO, treadmill ever.
Just load tap & spin, you can run it down the tuning board several times just to get things smoothed out.
Sometimes good enough is good enough
Just load tap & spin, you can run it down the tuning board several times just to get things smoothed out.
Sometimes good enough is good enough
Yep, tuning on a treadmill is not the right way to go. I know some YouTube videos show people tuning their cars on a treadmill but they’re just tuning the speed out of their cars.
NOO, treadmill ever.
Just load tap & spin, you can run it down the tuning board several times just to get things smoothed out.
Sometimes good enough is good enough
That's why I didn't try to build another car!
I feel like the treadmill helped me to identify a wobble that I was able to tune out by adjusting the axles when I was building it, why is it bad?
It seemed pretty helpful when I was putting it together to identify a wobble that would have slowed me down, I did quite a few miles on the treadmill, only at like 4 mph though, seemed like it smoothed things out in addition to helping me identify a problem. How does it slow you down?
I have never used a treadmill to tune because I was told not to ever use one before I ever even really got into league racing. I’ll ask you this with your wobble. How do you know that the wheel is what caused the wobble? Wouldn’t it make more sense that the treadmill surface caused it to wobble? It’s also an easy way to get nicks and scratches in your wheels. It’s just not an accurate or efficient way to tune your car.
We use glass because it’s super smooth and won’t nick anything. You can also hear everything on glass.
If I build a car and prep everything to my standards and roll it on a treadmill and here something weird, I’m willing to bet it’s because of the treadmill, not my wheels.
We use glass because it’s super smooth and won’t nick anything. You can also hear everything on glass.
If I build a car and prep everything to my standards and roll it on a treadmill and here something weird, I’m willing to bet it’s because of the treadmill, not my wheels.
it is a new treadmill and I cleaned it off real well before I ran the car on it, pretty smooth and clean, the back left wheel had a little wobble that I fixed by adjusting the wheel gap slightly.
I hear ya, but I’m telling you it’s not a good idea, Lol. I don’t build many graphite cars, but you will be fine just putting it in and spinning the wheels like Jupiter said. I’d look for wobbles by rolling it on a table of some kind. Preferably a wooden or glass one if you have one. Tables are a lot smoother than treadmills. Unless you were trying to figure out steer? But that too I would do on a table over 4 feet.
I don’t want to sound mean, I’m just trying to help, the treadmill tuning method has been done by many of the top racers, but there’s a reason they stopped doing it 10 years ago, it just doesn’t work.
I don’t want to sound mean, I’m just trying to help, the treadmill tuning method has been done by many of the top racers, but there’s a reason they stopped doing it 10 years ago, it just doesn’t work.
I don't have any emotional attachment to the treadmill, I just want to understand what is going on. I appreciate that you are answering my questions. It seemed pretty helpful for identifying certain problems and you can spin the wheels a lot more than you can with your finger, is using it damaging the car in some way? I also like that you can lift the car off the treadmill going at a certain speed and then see how long your wheels spin, seems more consistent than spinning with the finger and you do all three wheels at the same time so you can compare them.
It’s not necessarily damaging the car, it’s damaging the wheels. The surface of the treadmill will skeet have and nick up wheels.
I tell the cub pack that I work with. if you are gonna try the treadmill trick, just tie your PWD car to the back of your real car and take it down the road... It will do the same thing to your PWD car.
Treadmills have anti-slip belts. The roughness will eat your wheels up.
Treadmills have anti-slip belts. The roughness will eat your wheels up.
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