<VV> Special wheel CENTER FIT and Pitman arm

[kenpepke at juno.com]

Thank you Tony.  50 Years of junkyard experience tells me one is much more likely to see a failed factory steel wheel including a LOT of those 'Z' wheels which frequently cracked the center section in street use and sometimes even rusted out in the 5 or 6 years those cars were around here in the S E Michigan area.   Like yourself, I have subjected alloy wheels to high horsepower drag racing without a failure and I do not believe I ever saw a time when someone else had a failure even though there may have been some over the years.  In short track racing steel wheels are mandatory [not all the rules make real sense] but there is no restriction on chrome plating.  Yes, 3200
pound [so called] stock cars on 1/4 to 1/2 miles tracks with no failures, other than collision.  But, anything can fail when you 'buy a piece of the rock.'

Speaking of chrome plating ... Those failed Pittman arms;  I suspect the blame lies somewhere other than the plating process.  Is hydrogen embrittlement[sp?] not a surface condition?  What steering load would have caused them to fail right through the largest cross section of the piece ... and snap like a pretzel?   This smacks of a materials failure perhaps somehow aggravated by the machining process.  I do not have a real answer but, I did have a 1963 Corvair connecting rod fail in exactly the same place!  Of the dozens of Corvairs I have owned it was the only catastrophic engine failure I have experienced.  Well, perhaps catastrophic is a to strong a term in this case because it did not stop the engine from running and driving the car.  It did make some noise for a while until the crank throw beat the end of the rod out of the way then it ran fine but a little down on power.  It happened in 1968 with about 145,000 on the odometer.  I repaired that engine with used parts and it lives today but, I do not know how many miles other owners have added.
Ken P         


*****************
Tony Underwood <tony.underwood at cox.net> wrote:

Remember:    Those Cragar SS wheels (along with the others) ARE DOT 
approved.   Nobody was taking any chances using those wheels.   And 
who the Hell ever thought that buying a set of Cragar SS wheels would 
SAVE you money over the factory steel stampings?

Explain to me like I was 12 how running Cragar SS wheels would "save" 
me money by "taking a chance".


I ran Cragar SS wheels on my musclecar for a decade and never had a 
minute's trouble out of them, and neither did anyone else I ever knew 
who ran them.   ;)   That included countless 450hp holeshots with 12" 
wide tires on the back and the wheels never complained nor did I ever 
break a stud.



tony..

****************************

>What about all those aftermarket aluminum wheels out there that had
>NO center hub support at all?
>Cragar wheels come to mind, also Keystones and ET alloys.   None of
>these wheels had any center hub fit.   They never seemed to be any
>trouble at all, including those 4-lug ET wheels that ended up on
>early 'Vairs.
>tony..
>
>===================================
>
>   You save your $$$... you take your chances....
>
>ignorance is bliss???  LOL! [ grin]
>
>
>Matt Nall










 

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