Going to Districts - What should I be doing to prepare?

[45t]

My Son's Pinewood derby car is going to district race March 9th. What should I be doing to it to prepare it for the distirct. I got a congratulations letter from the Pack that I can fine tune it now before race time.

He won the pack race but only beat out the #2 car by 1/100th of a second (.0025 over the course of four races).

Bad part is my axles are glued in. So all I can do is graphite the crap out of it and lightly sand the wheels?
We'd like to increase its times a lil bit, but we don't plan on winning at district. We just do not want its doors blown off. Looking for suggestions.

thanks in advance

 

[W racing]

What are the axles glued in with? Too much graphite is not good. You do want a decent amount in there.

 

[45t]

Axels are Glued in with gorilla glue

 

[quadad]

Great job !

That Gorilla glue is nasty stuff around axles. Since you have to wait until March, it would be best to re-prep the bores shortly before that race, but it's not the end of the world if you can't. Graphite does not get better being exposed to air.

Did you drill holes from the bottom to get the glue to the axles ? If so you could softly drill it out and gently try to twist the axles out, but you would need to be VERY careful to not crack the wood. If it looks too risky I wouldn't do it.

If you end up leaving everything together judge the amount of additional graphite by how many heats you ran already and how many you will run at district. Too much will slow you down.

 

[Eastside Racing]

if your good with the build turn the car on its side take the graphite and put over the axel head push it in the wheel cone with a small brush...... the clean your wheels good.... good luck thats what i do to a scout car... so i dont lose the tune of it..

 

[45t]

Man, I'm kicking myself on glueing the axles now.

I've already broke one car messing with axles, so I'll probably just confirm the alignment, lightly sand the wheels and lightly graphite it prior to racing. The set up has 8 passes on it now and the car was running quicker times the more it ran. So hopefully it will still run quickly with the next 4 passes it is scheduled for at District.

 

[Papa V Racing]

45T - Your in the right spot now these guys can guide you going forward ... I had the same thing with bad info so my first real car I am building this month will be done correct...

V

 

[quadad]

45t - do you really mean "sand the wheels" ? I was assuming you meant "clean the wheel tread" - like with some Isopropyl. Cleaning the wheels after running a Scout race is very important.

 

[45t]

Quote: 45t - do you really mean "sand the wheels" ? I was assuming you meant "clean the wheel tread" - like with some Isopropyl. Cleaning the wheels after running a Scout race is very important.

Yep clean, there is graphite on the tread from running at the pack race and in reading the rules for district it says there can't be any graphite there.

 

[Chief]

I used to glue in my axles as well and I had to do the same thing you are doing right now. Here is what I did...I used a sharp Xacto knife (the long break-away knives work well as you get access) to cut most of the glue off, then I used a Xtra small bit on my dremel tool to grind the glue. The wheels were still stuck and so I used some denatured alcohol on the glue (MAKE sure not to get any on the wheels!!!) and it let go of the axles fairly quick. Just be careful if you try this not to use to much just a little at a time and be patient, then the axles will pull out and you can re-prep all you want. If you have time try it on something other than your car first so you know how it is going to or not going to work without messing up your car???!!!

 

[Eliminator Racing]

+1 Chief

 

[ljo]

Magic eraser will clean the graphite off the wheel tread.

 

[down4derby]

I helped build a car for my niece a couple days ago with very little time to do it. So I pulled the wheels off my adult class car from last year that were glued in with ca. I thought about carefully cutting k-grooves in the axles while on the car, instead realizing the hubs are taperd as well as the axle head I just pulled them with pliers. I then cleaned up the outer edge wear the pliers booggerd the axles with a 600 sanding pad. All the contact areas remained highly polished and we just reburnished the axles with graphite as well as the wheel bores. For cleaning the treads we hold the sanding pad against the contact areas of the tread holding the inside hub and gently spin the wheel until smooth again. Btw her car got fastest run out of the graphite cars. We also reprepped my sons last district winning car from 2 years ago with the wheels still glued on by blowing the bores out with air then puffing more graphite back in. The air does not remove the graphite that has ben burnished in. His car took 1st in the youth division. Good luck at the races!