Back story: So I was out at a family friends house celebrating new years eve with dinner and friends when I got contacted by a local drifter/photographer about a big "secret" drift session going on at midnight. I was given A address and directions to the "location" and told to pull in around midnight with my lights off, ready to party. I immediately made a point to get home earlier than originally planned, and did a quick pre-flight, checking tire pressures, fluid levels, and gassing up. Around 11:30 I headed out to a near by gas station to meet up with the group. When I got there I was highly disappointed with a one man party in a FWD mazda and Charles bitching that everyone bailed last minute. I was about to just go home, but the drifter in me begged to shred some tires so I agreed to roll out anyway, and boy was that a disgusting blessing in disguise.
We got to the spot and Charles assured me this place was legit, safe, and law enforcement free. we then drove the area once and I looped back for my first run. The area was a warehouse with a huge docking area split in two by this peninsula shape in the center with a wide access road, basically, linking the two docks together. However this access area was basically one long hump. I took off with Charles in the passenger seat gunning towards the access road. The idea was to kick the car sideways near the center of the access point, where the car would be lighter, and do some 3rd gear manji's. As I approached the middle of this "peninsula" I was in 3rd gear, and kicked the clutch, feint, dropped the clutch. The car stepped out perfectly and I started the counter steer movements. As I hit my counter steer angle, the pavement also went from a slight down hill, to flat. As my car experienced the change in slope I heard a massive pop sound followed by a loud, rapid clicking. I kept my foot down and continued drifting left, as the clicking continued. Then after a manji to the right, the sound faded away until I straightened out. once the weight returned to the right front wheel the loud clicking returned along with a pull to the right.
I instantly figured wheel bearing, stopped the car and called AAA. I had the next day off (new Years Day) so I went out, bought a new inner and outer bearing and put the car in the air. As I got the hub loose, I was met with a surprise in the for of a *tink* as something hit the ground... This is what happened.
Two bolts in my hub came loose. WTF!? O_o? I can only hypothesize, that this was a already occurring issue that was provoked by the extra forces the right front was put under during such a rough entry. I'm guessing that it forced the hub(which has probably loosed already) back into it's proper position and the loose bolt got decapitated by the spindle, which also has markings to back it up. Luckily I was wise to stop the car ASAP and tow it. Damage was minimal.
Original bearing looked fine after a quick cleaning, and inspection, so it was repacked and replaced to proper spec, and the bolts where replaced with new ones, torqued, and I added LocTite to insure that, at least this side, wasn't going to happen again. Lucky for me this was shortly before the first track event of the year and I was able to avoid this at the track and waste time and money on that.
No comments:
Post a Comment