Dennis,
You bring up a good point. The typical 1950's or even '60's production car
was not designed with today's tires in mind. Even my relatively skinny
L-series Dunlops undoubtedly have more grip than was available in the
1950's. Wider, more modern, radial tires place even greater loads on the
suspension. Plus -- few people appreciate this -- "stronger" wheels can
increase suspension loads. A cast alloy wheel (e.g. Minilite or replica) is
far stiffer than the original steel disk, or wire wheels -- and that added
stiffness transmits higher shock loads to the suspension bits. The
combination of wide sticky tires plus strong, stiff wheels is a double
whammy to the suspension. (I'm not against stronger wheels, I'm just
pointing out that they increase susepnsion loads).
Add to that, possibly: stiffer springs, stiffer shocks, a larger anti-roll
bar, some negative camber, Nylatron suspension bushings ... all of those
things increase suspension loads. There is far less compliance in the
system than the original set-up. As a result the 40-year-old stock, factory
spindles & king pins are now taking quite a beating. Sure, the original
parts were probably over-designed at the time. But we are now placing much
greater loads on them, and using up that original extra margin of
over-design.
Mark Palmer
>From: dennis J Shea <djshea11@juno.com>
>To: mgvrmark@hotmail.com
>CC: donqueen@Inreach.com, vintage-race@autox.team.net
>Subject: Re: Broken Stub Axle (Spindle) on Austin-Healey 3000
>Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 21:40:14 -0400
>
>I could be wrong but I heard that the reason that Yoko-- A008R tires were
>outlawed in certain East coast race groups was because the early
>suspensions could not take the strain, and , of course, so that certain
>prominent people could sell their Dunlops.
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