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knock off wire wheels, importaint!!!!

To: <spridgets@autox.team.net>
Subject: knock off wire wheels, importaint!!!!
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 11:26:51 -0000charset="iso-8859-1"
the 1962 morgan 4-4 we run in vintage racing 3 days ago experienced a
component failure wich to date had not been seen and i believe should be
shared with other enthusiasts reguardless of their vehicle's aplication (be
it track or street).
the morgan is equiped with dunlop competition knock off wire wheels.  friday
a left front wheel came off the car at speed at watkins glen in a rather
fast right hand corner.  the car was about a car width or less from the
guard railing(armco) when this happened and the wheel shot off and hit the
armco and bounced off back and badly smashed the rear fender of the car
before continuing on it's merry way coming to a rest well off down track.
the car skidded safely to a stop without further incident thanks to the
owner/driver(peter dunn )being able to keep the car under controll on the
remaining 3 wheels .
absolute fear of having sent out the car with a loose (untightened knock
off) wheel was beginning to set in as the car arrived behind the tow truck.
minutes later the course workers had found the missing knock off 2 winged
knock off and had returned it to us in our location in the pitts.
the knock off itself failed!

the threaded center of the knock off had split down the side and approx. one
third around the threads and was displaying radiating cracks in the brass
under cracked chrome plating in the center threaded portion.  after removing
all remaining knock off's and examining them a second was found to be
failing (brass stretching but not showing any visible cracks) by finding a
few hair line cracks in the chrome plating around the outer edge of the
threaded center portion.
the failure was in the threads not the tapered interference fit against the
outer portion of the center hub of the wire wheel itself.

my point here is remove, clean and carefully inspect your knock offs for
signs of wear and fatigue.  this failure could have happened just as easily
on a street car as on a competition car.  yes a competition car is subjected
to higher side loads.  but fatigue is a problem with our cars as they grow
older and older.  do not let this happen to you!

we borrowed a spare knock off from a fellow competitor and i dressed off the
few(i was amazed how few) damaged splines on the hub and refitted a spare
wheel and tire.  and proceeded (with a broken finger....the middle one on
left hand!  spent entire weekend being socially challenged pointing at
someone and flipping them am unintentional bird!  whole other story!!)   to
use 2 hammers to straighten out the fender and spray a bit of color on the
damaged fender to make it presentable for the remaining track time for
peter.

this could have ended far worse than it did!   peter was lucky the wheel had
not bounced in the side of the roll cage and hit him(had the wheel hit the
car 4-6" farther forward and it might have broken his shoulder or arm!).  no
one else was involved in this incident and the car was not too badly damaged
and we were able to repair the damage there in out pitts.   on the street
with a less skilled driver under less than perfect conditions this could
have resulted in a serious accident!

chuck.
numerous thicko's were observed enjoying a rather nice event ...gary you
looked great passing senica lodge on the re-enactment of the race on the old
course.   (i was there spectating assisting in beer controll....lol!...
)   ).




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