Any issues with do-nut savers?

[Angus]

I purchased a set of do-nut savers and have them on the Merlyn.

A couple of the local club guys are of the opinion that they can "bind" and bend the ears on the half-shaft if you drop a wheel off the track etc...

Anyone have any issues with the do-nuts savers?

Thanks!

Angus

[timos]

Never heard of this issue before.

I cannot imagine the thin (aluminum, in my case) arms of the "saver" bending the steel halfshaft ears. Something else must have happened if someone saw that issue.

They do add some length to the halfshaft assembly, overall, and need to be accounted for in setup.

tim

[J Vigs]

If you run the reinforced donuts check to make sure you have plenty of clearance between the savers and the reinforcement plates in the donuts. The first time I ran the savers the plates chewed up the savers. A little grinding on the savers fixed the problem.

John Viggers

[Brian]

They can only bind if they are installed with too much insertion, easy to check when doing the initial install. Mine could flex a lot without binding, but you really don't want your rear suspension and axle going to that extreme angle anyway. I would and did set up my rear suspension with shocks that limited droop to a reasonable amount, like 3" from static, or where the springs start to rattle loose, and with bump stops to limit upper travel. That way you can check for binding over the whole range of suspension movement by taking the spring off the shock and exercising the suspension while rotating the wheel to turn the axle. That is just part of building the car in my opinion, there is no excuse for putting a car on track that can bind up an axle.

Same with all the suspension. I got a car in once that was using (and really using) the front upper rod ends as bump stops. The car was set up so the upper rod end was fully bound before the car bottomed out and there were no bump stops, so the rod ends were slightly bent and the races were trashed. I installed shocks that were the correct length with proper bump stops.

Brian

[Angus]

Gentlemen,

Thank you very much for the advice, I'll make sure the savers don't bind through the full range of suspension travel.

I appreciate being able to benefit from your experience.

Angus