Re: THOUGHTS ON RULE VS CANTING TIRES

[sondo007]

Hey all, OK this is another rules inquiry and would like your input. A parent/cub from another pack just asked for some help on their car yesterday. They gave me these rules that they received from their PACK. I'm good with everything, except the wheel being exactly flat. I don't want the cub to get DQ'ed if I drill can't axles into the area above the slot, but I also don't want the wheel rubbing up against the body. I plan to use the Teflon Nail polish on the body, but what I'm wondering is what degree can I put axle at so it looks flat on the track like they got pictured below, without getting DQ'ed. Any thoughts. As always Thanks for your input.

 

[JCovert]

Figure 3 looks pretty bad if you want to put neg cant

 

[Crash Enburn]

"Axles cannot be turned down by machine"?? You can't stick 'em in a drill press to file/sand/polish them??

"Slots cannot be moved or altered in any way"?? It sounds like you cannot cut one end of the block off the car and glue it to the front, thus moving the rear axles back to 5/8" from the end of the car. But if a cub designs his car such that the back (or front) was removed altogether, that'd be okay.

Anyway, I just picked up one of my old cars here and took a look at the slop I have in the wheels. It looks like you could get away with 1-2 degrees of angle and still run flat. YMMV. Good luck!

 

[pony express]

It looks like they do not want the holes drilled canted. What you can do is drill one hole higher than the other. When the car sits on the ground it will list to one side giving a differential natural cant to the rear wheels. Driil both holes straight, but on the DFW side you should drill it deeper than the NDRW side. It will be faster than the straight drill, but not as fast as with a good drill with equal cants. It's tough situation. Sometimes you can drill right at the top of the slot and then sand a little off the bottom.

 

[Spirit Racing]

Can't the rears 1 or. 1 1/2 degrees. The wheel will set flat on inspection. But will raise up on the edge slightly when running down the track. Due to the slop in the axle and bore. I have done this for years with no problem ! Call John he can give you the pin size for the silver bullet. Let him know if it is v-groove or the old style round groove, because the pin size will be different. You can use a drill bit. I think I used a 3 / 32 for a round groove type ........SPIRIT.........And I think 1 degree would be safer to use !!!!!!!,

 

[sondo007]

Good ideas.

 

[quadad]

Yes, this (slight angle) drilling has been done for years where Scouts have this rule. You can fine tune the angle by practicing with some pin gages and a piece of scrap wood. This is where a pin gage set really comes in handy. And as Spirit suggested, don't get too close and risk a DQ.

 

[bracketracer]

So with rules like that, where you can't bend the DFW axle down to set the steer, do you just bend it forward a little to keep the wheel flat and still have some steer or leave it straight with no steer and maybe narrow up the front of the car on both sides or ?.

 

[Spirit Racing]

You can still bend front axle with positive canting , but only a slight bend of maybe 1 1/2 degrees. Like the rear canting it will set flat on inspection but will do its thing when moving down the track.......SPIRIT........

 

[GravityX]

So let me ask this. Car comes in with the wheels not flat to the surface and axles appear canted. Car gets DQ'd. Dad or son asks, why? Tech guys says the axles are canted. Father and son look at one another and say, what is that? We drilled the block as best we could with a hand drill, that was all I had. So... they get DQ's for giving it their best with what they had. There are moms and dads out there like this. Seems unfair, but we could go on and on all day long only to find a medium. For what it's worth.... my 2¢ /images/boards/smilies/crazy.gif

 

[IAE Racing]

+1 GX.

Now you know, the slots are not square in one out of ? number of blocks. If it would be the front slot out of square, the more forward slot would have toe in giving some steer. Since the in the box axles aren't straight, they could also be used to your advantage.

Seems like it would be easier using the earlier describe ideas and build the car right.

 

[sondo007]

The whole thing about "the slot can't be moved or altered in any way." Means to me don't drill at all into the slot. I agree with another member, I will give my input to the cub and father and let them decide if they want to risk going with the 1 degree cant or just straight in and hope for the best. I guess if I can show them the other prep stuff, that should at least put them in the top 3. Which is better than what they've done the last 3 years.

 

[Spirit Racing]

Just another thought for you Sondo. You can have the best prep in the world and everything done right except having poor alignment and proper steer, and if you don't get the alignment right you will have a slow car. One or more hits on the rail with the wrong wheel , equals a slow car......The axle hole drilled at the top of the slot in my book can not be detected, especially with 1 degree angle. The pack level racing is all about alignment and steer. 99 % of all the cars will be banging the rails all the way down the track......SPIRIT.......

 

[quadad]

I remain totally with Spirit on this. I would feel comfortable drilling with the 1 degree cant and using clear epoxy if my boys were still in Cub Scouts and we had rules like this. I don't think that the drilling will cause any different effect than if you happened to push the axles in there at just that same spot. I also don't think you would be violating the rule. You are just making it easier to put the axles in where they belong. I have helped other Scouts that had the "axle tips must remain visible" rule and got used to using the 5 minute epoxy on those. I like glueing in Scout axles because of the typically rougher handling, tracks and stop sections.