[Shotimes] If you have cut your welds...

[Mike.Wojton@us.o-i.com]

I must be missing something then.  How can you get the washers in there
by just loosening the nuts?  Unless you're not putting them over the 
studs, just in between them?


Mike Wojton
Toledo, Ohio

-'95 White MTX
   '96 Brake Upgrade

"Avoid the clap." - Jimmy Dugan




shotimes-admin@autox.team.net wrote on 03/09/2004 12:14:47 PM:

> On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 09:55:39 -0500, Mike.Wojton@us.o-i.com wrote:
> 
> >Try slotting the washers.  That way you'd only have to loosen the nuts
> >enough to slide them in.  And if you put some marks on the tower where
> >the nuts are at before loosening, you should be able to get the 
alignment
> >back pretty much to where it was.
> 
> Fender washers work well to spread the load.  I told a couple of folks 
to use just
> 'standard' 1/4 inch washers, but fender washers are safer.  You'd need 
at least two,
> maybe three of them, depending on thickness.  The factory plate is about 
3/32"
> thick, if I remember.   Note on cutting them below.
> 
> I should have added this caution......if you have cut your welds at the 
top of the
> strut towers, it may or may not be a good idea to use washers.  At the 
factory, the
> camber plate goes over and is welded to the 'flaps' that form the curved 
sides of
> the top of the tower to make a strong assembly that has no play or flex. 
 However,
> after the plate is disconnected from the flaps, the combined strength of 
the
> assembled parts, bearing, flaps and plate, is less than it was before. 
This loss of
> strength is mostly compensated for by the clamping force the three nuts 
supply
> against the bearing, mashing everything together over a fairly large 
area.  However,
> if washers are added, rather than the factory offered plates, all the 
force of
> clamping, combined with the weight of the car, is concentrated in those 
three small
> areas.  In hard cornering combined with a rough road, it is possible 
that distortion
> of the flap metal near the washers could occur.  It wouldn't come apart 
or
> catastrophically fail, I don't think, but some bending could occur.
> 
> Dave Kegel and I had this discussion a year or two ago, with him 
bringing this fact
> up, and I can't disagree with him that it is POSSIBLE that something bad 
could
> happen to a camber plate that has the welds cut.  I tried and tried to, 
but I
> couldn't!!  ;-)
> 
> As far as slotting the washers.....that's possible, but extra work.  You 
can't just
> use snips on them once....you'd have to cut a slot the thickness of the 
stud.  You
> guys want me to demonstrate installing a set at the convention, just by 
loosening
> the nuts?  I'm already going to pull a strut.
> 
> George
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