preferred material to fill / redrill slots

[MLK Esq.]

My son's race is Saturday. We attempted to install the wheels and tune yesterday. The car has wicked bad inconsitent steer with the slots, and they have now opened up to the point of not holding the axles in. I tried water, shims etc...but that was a lost cause. Of the readily avaliable products like wood filler, epoxy etc, what would be best to partially fill (leaving the center area open for inspection of axle)the slots and redrill the holes? Our rules say nothing about the slots. The car has fenders and I have an axle alignment tool that I can use to redril. The axles were straight when I started, but I have not rechecked them yet. AnyThoughts?

 

[MLK Esq.]

Wow 27 views and nothing, I was pondering laying in a 1/64 plywood strip to the bed of the slot (without glue) to take up the slack and reinserting the axles as the slots are square to the car. Or fill the slot with Balsa and redril and refit? Perhaps that will spark an idea or two.

 

[Kinser Racing]

Please don't be impatient. Nobody's trying to exclude you or anything. /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif

Please try to understand that these things are frustrating for you and for those that need to answer them. 27 views meant that 27 people were interested in your post but didn't have an answer for you at that time, sometimes we need to ponder. A lot of people do several things that we would suggest against, for the very reason your having the problem and then come to us to have us come up with the fix. This would be classified as one of those things. /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif

If you don't have any rules for using the axle slots just fill them with epoxy and redrill them, that's about the best you can do right now with fenders in place. I hope this helps some. Good luck! /images/boards/smilies/thumb.gif

 

[MBL Racing]

I used two part epoxy which you can skim smooth over the axle slots and redrill after they've dried if you are using a silver bullet or goatboys block drilling alignment tool to give the rear axles a negative (I think thats right) cant which means the axle head is higher than the axle tip in the body. Otherwise to get the cant you would need you'll need to try to set the axles in place with a slight cant while the epoxy dries. Your axles and wheels will obviously need to be polished and prepped and you'll want a gap tool of some kind handy to make sure you have tight enough gaps while the epoxy dries. I did this a couple times with some scout cars and it worked out fine before I got the silver bullet. Hope that helps.

 

[MLK Esq.]

Didn't mean to seem impatient just hoping that I didn't stump everybody. How much, if any, will the epoxy affect tunability, if anybody has had experience with it. We did fenders over the rear wheels and didn't really allow enough room for much rear cant--we had a little rubbing unless they were straight up. However, the upside is that since we are having to fix the slot issue we can fix that one too.

 

[OPARENNEN]

I used two part epoxy which you can skim smooth over the axle slots and redrill after they've dried if you are using a silver bullet or goatboys block drilling alignment tool to give the rear axles a negative (I think thats right) cant which means the axle head is higher than the axle tip in the body. Otherwise to get the cant you would need you'll need to try to set the axles in place with a slight cant while the epoxy dries. Your axles and wheels will obviously need to be polished and prepped and you'll want a gap tool of some kind handy to make sure you have tight enough gaps while the epoxy dries. I did this a couple times with some scout cars and it worked out fine before I got the silver bullet. Hope that helps.

I agree. Although I used tubes of hardner and epoxy that I bought at an Airplane Model shop.
I took a bit longer to harden, but afterwards it was as hard as cement, but drillable.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Did that this year. Used 60 second epoxy. Still was a day or so before I felt it was drill-able, but it worked.

Learned my lesson. Now I flip it over and drill the holes, then "connect the dots" using a sawzall blade to make a slot. Doesn't affect the integrity of the hole.

 

[Kinser Racing]

Did that this year. Used 60 second epoxy. Still was a day or so before I felt it was drill-able, but it worked. Learned my lesson. Now I flip it over and drill the holes, then "connect the dots" using a sawzall blade to make a slot. Doesn't affect the integrity of the hole.

If you have to use the slots that's the way it's done. /images/boards/smilies/thumb.gif

 

[MLK Esq.]

I will try the 60 second epoxy...and start a plan b car in the mean time... I learned a few things on this build especially wheel to fender spacing. Fortunately wheels and axles are done. Thanks for the ideas.