Itinerant Lame Cow Shambles To Salt Lake
Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2015 6:55 am
Here is the crack on the left rear drum in the Carson National Forest the day before yesterday:
I dremelled the drum smooth along the crack(s), then painted the cracked area to see if it was flexing enough to crack the paint:
A hundred miles up the road, I pulled off on a forest service road. Pulled the hubcap (without my now-missing hubcap remover) and heck yeah the paint is freshly cracked.
While I was there on the side of this forest path inspecting the drum in my tanktop and Hilfigers,
all hell sneaks up in the form of a hysterical little dog who went right for my shoes, followed by a rather roly-poly woman and her roly-poly friend, and her Had It Up To Here spouse,
"Buster! Buster! Come HERE! Buster! Buster! Bad Buster! Buster! Get over HERE! Buster! Buster!"
"Would you get the damn dog?"
"Buster! Buster! Come HERE! . . . HE WON'T HURT YOU. Buster! Buster! Get over HERE! Buster! Buster!"
"Oh for crying out loud! Get the damn dog!"
"Buster! Buster! Come HERE! Buster! Buster! Why don't YOU get the dog? Bad Buster! Buster! Get over HERE! Buster! Buster!"
Finally, the "damn dog" decides that I am boring and trots over to the Rolypolys quite satisfied, I am sure.
I do not know how cast iron behaves once cracked. I do not know how cast iron behaves with thousands upon thousands of little bend movements as wheels rotate. I do not know how cast iron behaves under 60 mph sweeper bends while being heated by applications of brakes that now judder. I do know that Salt Lake City is 651 miles far away and includes the Soldier Summit pass of 7,477 feet elevation. So I did a calculus of how much more cracking I could deal with before the wheel / drum ran the risk of separating from the hub center. That would be totally bad. Unlike the later composite drums whose only duty is to slow the car (you could drive a late bus with no drums), these drums also serve as hubs that transmit torque and support the car on the wheels. I painted arrows at the ends of the cracks:
I PM'd rallybug from Shiprock NM to tell him this already-rescheduled appointment may not happen . . . and I mentioned that two new drums are being overnighted to his house from Wolfsburg West, addressed to Colinkellogg Bensamways, since they had no "care of" field on the order form.
Then I drove into the evening with a heightened concentration for any vibrations coming from the rear:
Well, the gimpy little brown cow shambled the whole 650 miles. Cracks did not propagate. We shall see if the new drums arrived . . . :
I dremelled the drum smooth along the crack(s), then painted the cracked area to see if it was flexing enough to crack the paint:
A hundred miles up the road, I pulled off on a forest service road. Pulled the hubcap (without my now-missing hubcap remover) and heck yeah the paint is freshly cracked.
While I was there on the side of this forest path inspecting the drum in my tanktop and Hilfigers,
all hell sneaks up in the form of a hysterical little dog who went right for my shoes, followed by a rather roly-poly woman and her roly-poly friend, and her Had It Up To Here spouse,
"Buster! Buster! Come HERE! Buster! Buster! Bad Buster! Buster! Get over HERE! Buster! Buster!"
"Would you get the damn dog?"
"Buster! Buster! Come HERE! . . . HE WON'T HURT YOU. Buster! Buster! Get over HERE! Buster! Buster!"
"Oh for crying out loud! Get the damn dog!"
"Buster! Buster! Come HERE! Buster! Buster! Why don't YOU get the dog? Bad Buster! Buster! Get over HERE! Buster! Buster!"
Finally, the "damn dog" decides that I am boring and trots over to the Rolypolys quite satisfied, I am sure.
I do not know how cast iron behaves once cracked. I do not know how cast iron behaves with thousands upon thousands of little bend movements as wheels rotate. I do not know how cast iron behaves under 60 mph sweeper bends while being heated by applications of brakes that now judder. I do know that Salt Lake City is 651 miles far away and includes the Soldier Summit pass of 7,477 feet elevation. So I did a calculus of how much more cracking I could deal with before the wheel / drum ran the risk of separating from the hub center. That would be totally bad. Unlike the later composite drums whose only duty is to slow the car (you could drive a late bus with no drums), these drums also serve as hubs that transmit torque and support the car on the wheels. I painted arrows at the ends of the cracks:
I PM'd rallybug from Shiprock NM to tell him this already-rescheduled appointment may not happen . . . and I mentioned that two new drums are being overnighted to his house from Wolfsburg West, addressed to Colinkellogg Bensamways, since they had no "care of" field on the order form.
Then I drove into the evening with a heightened concentration for any vibrations coming from the rear:
Well, the gimpy little brown cow shambled the whole 650 miles. Cracks did not propagate. We shall see if the new drums arrived . . . :