77 replies to this topic

[av8tor]

Ouch.  For me, it is always easier when I do it to myself.  Always kinda pisses me off when someone else helps me put my car/bike/plane in a tree.  Looking forward to all of your lessons learned.  Glad you are alright, and most of all, still in good spirits!  Looking forward to seeing the next rendition!

[sierralima]

Glad you are ok, Tom!  I was watching, you were a couple of turns behind me, then you disappeared.  Good luck on the rebuild keep us posted.

 

Sally

[Erik Hardy]

How many trees have you hit?

 

Ouch.  For me, it is always easier when I do it to myself.  Always kinda pisses me off when someone else helps me put my car/bike/plane in a tree.  Looking forward to all of your lessons learned.  Glad you are alright, and most of all, still in good spirits!  Looking forward to seeing the next rendition!

[tLinder]

Whelp. Friday marked the end of the line for #41 yellow. Nasa tx is at Texas World Speedway this weekend. During practice on Friday I lost control at the apex of t7. It went into a bit of a tank slapper and I never really regained control. The car left the racing surface at about 97mph. I spun through the grass and soft earth. About 150 yds away is an earthen berm, and trees. I continued to spin as I approached the trees and eventually struck a tree while going backwards at 52 mph. The car spun off the tree and launched over the berm and did a flat 360 degree spin in the air before coming to rest behind the tree that I hit.

The tub is a write-off. The diff ear broke. The COOL suit (mounted in trunk) was destroyed. But, the rest of the car is untouched...doors, quarter panels, subframes, control arms, engine, Trans, etc. After pushing the rear bumper off the LR tire and strapping the diff back in place, I drove the car back onto the trailer. Steering wheel was still straight, even.

Tom, next year for Earth Day might I suggest you just hug a tree with your arms.  It was really, really sad to see Old Yeller crumpled up.  Wishing you the best of luck in the swap process.  Hoping to see you on the track at Hallett in June!   

[Bench Racer]

Tom, next year for Earth Day might I suggest you just hug a tree with your arms.    

30 years from now, Tom' will be doing a similar to the current Woodstock TV commercial where the grand mom and grand daughter are hugging a tree with the grand mom saying, or was it that tree over yonder.

[Tom Hampton]

Ouch.  For me, it is always easier when I do it to myself.  Always kinda pisses me off when someone else helps me put my car/bike/plane in a tree.  Looking forward to all of your lessons learned.  Glad you are alright, and most of all, still in good spirits!  Looking forward to seeing the next rendition!

 

Well, I haven't been helped into a tree or other hard object, yet.  No one to blame except myself.  Not sure I feel the need to do any ABA testing in that regard, either. 

 

As far as lessons learned....

 

Lesson #1: Not that you want to think this way...but, in consideration of the possibility of a retub, build the car with that in-mind.  Obviously it's secondary to safe and reliable.  But, ease of removal and migration to the new tub can be planned for in advance.  I thought I'd done a decent job---but, I knew there were a couple of questionable spots.  I'd  always intended to go back and fix them (it just never made it to the top of the priority list).  Now, I guess I get the chance to do that.

 

Most of the mechanical mounts were easy last night.  Impact gun, or air ratchet removed all the bolt-ons in short order.   I will say, that I'm less of a fan of those cage bolt-ons that use the little allen wrenches.  They do the job fine, but finding the right damn allen wrench (two different f-ing sizes. Really?!?!!!), and then the tedious 1/2 turn, reset wrench, 1/2 turn, repeat process about drove me mad. 

 

But, I struggled with some of the electrical.  The racing harnesses were all completely separate from the stock harnesses---so that was good.  But, I hardwired the sensors into my data system (AFR, fuel Press, throttle, and brake).    So, I had to "un-wire" them to remove the harness.  Tedious, time consuming, and error prone.  I'll be putting Deutsch connectors in-line to fix this problem. 

 

Second, I didn't sheath the section of harness that was behind the dash--this made removal a delicate job, and I had to hunt for a few of the wires to see what I'd tiewrapped them to.  This will also make repeating the route more difficult on re-install.  I'll be laying this harness out on the dining room table with a bunch of heatshrink, and sheathing so that re-install goes more quickly and smoothly. 

 

Finally, I didn't really plan the penetrations through the firewall very well.  it was just sorta ad-hoc, and as a result I had two wires in one hardness that needed to be extracted in opposite directions.  The AFR wire had to pull through the firewall from the engine compartment, and the water pressure had to pull into the cockpit.  But, these were part of the same sheathed harness section.  As a result, I had to cut all the sheathing off and pull the wires in individually.  Consequently, I have to put the harness back together.  I'll also be removing the extra 1000' that comes with the AFR harness and putting a Deutsch connector inline. 

 

These three issues made it more difficult to get the racing harnesses out of the car, and will make it more tedious to install into the new car unless I address them prior to re-installation.  Racing harness rules:

 

1.  Ensure all LRUs have connectors, and can be removed from the car independent of the harness(es), and vice-versa. 

2.  Ensure all harnesses are properly terminated, spliced, and sheathed. 

3.  Ensure all firewall penetrations are done in such a way that the harness can easily be extracted fully in-tact (with sheathing and connectors undisturbed). 

 

Nevertheless, the cockpit is stripped of all electronics, harnesses, dash, seat, mirrors, camera mounts, fire and cutoff switch pulls, fire-bottle, ballast system.  the only thing left is the fire system plumbing, and fire-bottle mounts (which are in the trunk behind the crumple zone). 

 

Parts to be replaced:

 

1.  Fire system plumbing in the damage zone.

2.  Cool suit cooler+plumbing and one disconnect connector.

3.  SD-Exhaust tail-pipe section.

4.  Trunk hood pins.

5.  Trunk deck lid.

6.  Steering wheel spline (unless I transfer the steering column). 

7.  Diff housing.

8.  Rear bumper. 

 

As near as I can tell visually the suspension is unbent.  Obviously, it could still be tweaked, but there are no obvious signs of damage and the wheel never made contact with anything solid...just soft earth.  All wheels still have negative camber, and normal-ish toe.  The steering wheel is still straight, and the car still rolls easy.  So, I'm hopeful. 

[Tom Hampton]

Oh....and use bright f-ing colored zip ties to make them easy to spot!  Nothing more irritating, than thinking you got them all only to have the harness still not come free and being unable to locate that last remaining tie. 

[Tom Hampton]

Thanks for all the good wishes.  The number of folks who came by to check on me all weekend was humbling.  And those of you who didn't.....I know who you are.  ;-)

 

Sally, it was great meet and to talk to you Saturday night.  

 

Toby, yes, I'm aiming for Hallett.  But, damn there is a lot to do over the nights and weekends.  With Mother's day, and two out-of-town graduations between now and then...dunno.  But, that's the target. 

 

Bench, the news is grim for TWS' longevity.  Seems like next year there probably won't be a tree (or track) in that spot any longer.  But, I'd love to be able to visit that tree for the next 30 years. 

[surlynkid]

Next race is NOLA.  Work faster. 

[Bench Racer]

 

Parts to be replaced:

 

1.  Fire system plumbing in the damage zone.

2.  Cool suit cooler+plumbing and one disconnect connector.

3.  SD-Exhaust tail-pipe section.

4.  Trunk hood pins.

5.  Trunk deck lid.

6.  Steering wheel spline (unless I transfer the steering column). 

7.  Diff housing.

8.  Rear bumper. 

IIRC, ol yeller was a bit weight heavy, reduce weight of items added to the car.

 

9. Roll cage weight reduction, you learned on the first car, implement what you learned. Total car weight target 2000 pounds dry and no driver or gear. Driver busting a$$ during re-build will trim up the driver.  

[Tom Hampton]

IIRC, ol yeller was a bit weight heavy, reduce weight of items added to the car.
 
9. Roll cage weight reduction, you learned on the first car, implement what you learned. Total car weight target 2000 pounds dry and no driver or gear. Driver busting a$$ during re-build will trim up the driver.

Roll cage, and various items on car were weight reduced prior to TWS. 

 

Driver was weight reduced over the last 5 months.  Driver is down to 163 lbs  and 16% BF from 203 lbs.  5-10 lbs remaining to attain target of 15 % BF. 

 

Car + driver required 20 lbs of ballast at TWS to make weight with a full coolsuit, and 2 gallons of gas.  That should imply a dry weight of roughly 2055. 

 

There is more to gain: I knew of another easy 10 lbs on yeller. Also, I think the incoming tub is a 1990 rather than a 1992.  We will see if that has any weight impact.  But, the point is still well taken, and it is actively on my mind where other opportunities might exist. 

[Johnny D]

Very sorry Tom.

Have you tried this ?

https://vimeo.com/12684276

 

J~
 

[Tom Hampton]

Are you going to rollerskate it?

Yes. That is the essential plan.

[Bench Racer]

Congrats on the personal body improvement!!!

[av8tor]

Lessons Learned are already value added.  Best wishes Tom and good luck on the rebuild.  Honestly, your selfless postings and technical additions to this site and SM racing played a large role in my decision to build a SM. 

[Tom Hampton]

Lessons Learned are already value added.  Best wishes Tom and good luck on the rebuild.  Honestly, your selfless postings and technical additions to this site and SM racing played a large role in my decision to build a SM.

You're too kind.  But, I'm glad that I was able to assist another into the path to financial ruin. 

 

As soon as I get time, I'll post some blog entries covering the rebuild.  I've got lots of pictures of the disassembly.  I just need to write it up---but, right now its either blog or car. 

 

I started cutting the cage out last night.  I got the right side landings cut out.  Tonight will be the left side.  I'm trying to remove the main cage assembly in a single piece.  After last night, I'm more confident that will work.  I'm less confident that I can get it into the new tub in one piece.  But, maybe if I cut off the seat-belt towers, I can get it in.  I can always weld the towers back on afterwards.  We shall see. 

[mhiggins10]

Ouch- sorry to hear it Tom.  T7 can be a handful if you don't get it all the way down to the apex and into the negative camber.  That's also where a couple of folks had the nasty wreck last year in the wet and wrote off 2 cars (1 for sure, pretty sure the second was toast as well).

 

Glad you are OK and the plan to get back at it is already in the works.

[Tom Hampton]

Ok, so....

 

Two days, two saws-alls (both are now on the fritz), 18 cutting wheels, 8 saws-all blades, and 4 bruises to my hands and fingers, and 3 cuts later...the cage is cut free of the car.  Technically speaking, anyway. 

 

I elected to cut the unibody around the footings rather than try and part the cage bars from their landing points. My rationale for that was that it would be easier to remove the footings outside the car while minimizing the amount of steel sacrificed (ie, changing the installed height of the cage).  The jury is still out on whether this was a good plan or not. 

 

The lesson I learned here is that there is a LOT of steel in the unibody around the locations of landing zones, and access to all of the surfaces that need to be cut is problematic.  There are molded-in box beams behind the rear firewall, and internal supports (stringers) inside the rocker-panels that all need to be cut out before the cage truly comes free.  That said, the cage drops through the floor easier than it pulls up and through it.  The cut edges keep hanging on each other when I try and pull up.  So, I will probably have to remove more material either from the footings or the unibody to give enough clearance to ensure that the cage moves freely.

[Adax]

Plasma Cutter.

 

next time

[Tom Hampton]

Ain't got one.  Considered getting one...couldn't justify the cost for a single job. As I do very little metal work, normally.