Dang! Everybody busting up their LBCs.
Bad cess!
I feel semi-lucky by comparison.
I towed Li'l Blue to Memphis over the Memorial Day weekend (1500 miles round
trip) to get in 9 laps of practice before the RF corner disconnected from
the car.
Broke the lower trunnion.
Someone later told me only British cars have trunnions, and now we know why
nobody else uses them!
Also ground my aluminum swaybar bracket almost down to the swaybar. And took
that tire to cord (but happily, not to air).
The scene was the carousel at the end of Memphis' straightaway, which is the
entire end-to-end length of its dragstrip. Then it is lift for a moment and
sail into the carousel at 6000-6500 in 4th gear -- I'm guessing about 80
mph. Halfway around there is all this sudden noise from the front of the
car -- BAM BANG SCRAPE POUND -- which suggested something was amiss. The
happy surprise was still having steering control (left wheel only!) so I
could take the car to where I wanted to park it, or at least as far off the
track as I could get before momentum totally ceased. The easy way off was
driver's left, but the corner station was driver's right so after a glance
in the mirror to assure I wasn't cutting anybody off I went that way. The
corner crew was most appreciative. And I got far enough off the pavement as
not to have to be rescued while the session was going on. At least the only
hard stuff to hit was underneath the car!
<sigh> Tied it up with many loops of baling wire, put it on the trailer with
the now-removed tire under the frame for the ride home (that worked really
well, BTW, because the baling wire barely lasted to roll it on the trailer
and, back home, did NOT survive rolling it off again). Bought a new set of
Hoosiers from Charlie Clark before I left the track.
Once home, I had new brackets made. Had a spare corner on the shelf so took
it to Midas to have the rust knocked off the brake disk (and they also
installed new a wheel bearing for me) and they did the labor for free! Perks
of being a repeat customer. Ordered in a new upper balljoint and lower
trunnion kit from Roadster Factory. Took me about three hours yesterday to
bolt it all back together while listening to Winston Cup on the radio. The
race finished barely before I did. Not counting the tires, about $150 in
parts to get her back together.
Next out, a local solo next weekend and a Divisional Solo two weeks later.
She's ready to go. Next race is July sometime.
--Rocky Entriken
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