Polishing non-standard wheel bores

[CliffordT]

Hey everyone, looks like a wealth of info on this site!

I just ordered the DD4H wheel polishing stuff but my race kit uses a different style of wheel. We have bores of about 0.125, and the normal stuff is pretty loose on my wheels. Any suggestions on what I should be looking for to safely prep my bores? I read that cotton swabs use rolled paper as their material, so maybe just make my own?

Also the red rocket polish says to use no scratch applicators, but they are also undersized. I have some precision hobby swabs from tamiya, which are essentially really nice q-tips, would just dabbing them on the cotton tip and giving it a spin do the trick?

 

[Guest]

Any chance the wheels are the Royal Rangers style? The bore size sounds about right.

 

[IAE Racing]

there was a post a short while back about using lolly pop stick.

 

[CliffordT]

Any chance the wheels are the Royal Rangers style? The bore size sounds about right.

Actually I think they are RA Racer wheels looking at the photos here.

Running short on time but I'm hoping my kids can get some suckers from school for a perfect fit. If that doesn't work I was able to successfully roll some standard paper tight enough to make a decent fit I may try again tomorrow and see what happens if I pack it tight with a toothpick core to get it nice and snug.

I will say the axle polish kit was amazing. I thought we had it good up to 1000 grit wet sand and toothpaste for polish but the difference in shine was incredible. Hoping I can repeat the magic with the bores.

Now if I can just get these screw axles that also come with this kit to line up right for wheel alignment...doesn't seem to want to cooperate just yet to get the rears to migrate to the heads. Might take some work but I'm confident I'll get it worked out.

 

[CliffordT]

Turns out out a tootsie roll pop is perfect, but my kids didn't bring one home until tonight. Alignment is running perfect and tuned on my test runs so it is what it is now. I burnished with a self-rolled piece of paper and a wooden core toothpick and that will have to do.

I made about 6 runs today to set my steer and broke the previous track record 3 times after I got it dialed. Ran a 3.09X on a 37.5" line to line (40' nominal?) what I believe to be MicroWizard track from comparison photos. We have a gradual transition so I know it isn't a BestTrack. Planned to squeeze out a few more hundtedths tonight, but my actual driving car had issues when I went to leave today and after all this work I decided just to leave the derby car there in case I can't make it back for the race tomorrow. The real question is, assuming my car gets me to work tomorrow, with waxed/burnished bores and a preliminary puff of DD4H zero friction graphite, would I be best served hitting it with a few more puffs, or should I just leave it as-is and hope it holds up for 6 runs? FWIW, what looks to be my closest competition was running right around 3.20X.

 

[Crash Enburn]

Definitely add more graphite.

 

[CliffordT]

Pulled off the win with a 3.077 best time, another new track record! I think there was still more left in the tank as I was a little unstable towards the end of the runs. I also never added pledge to my axles either so I know I have some tricks to implement yet. Now that I have all the prep tools for next year I'm hoping with some more time I can break 3.000.

 

[IAE Racing]

 

[Kinser Racing]

Nice job, congrats! /images/boards/smilies/thumb.gif

 

[GravityX]

Great job CT, congratulations!

 

[DEW36]

Congratulations!!!

 

[Papa V Racing]

Congrats...

 

[CliffordT]

Thanks everyone...I was actually 2 time defending champion but the competition is gaining! Definitely glad I found this site and I'm soaking as much new info in as I can! Now hopefully none of my coworkers follow me here!