Axel Foley'd

After last event at Sebring, I was really upset having a broken drivetrain. The day before I was taking the car to the shop to pull out the transmission, I started her up and tried to feel out to make sure we had to pull out everything. By pure stupid luck, I looked throught the hole where the shifter is, allowing me to witness the driveshaft spinning. WHAT?!!? How is that possible if I broke the transmission? I shut her down and got out to go under the car.  I grab the driveshaft and give it a spin and check on the differential. I can see both sides spinning... ok diff checks out good... how about my axles? Hmmm, WHERE ARE MY AXLES? Yeah, the passenger side was completely missing, having snapped off both ends of the axle/cvjoints while my driver side was sheared off at the diff joint, but still dangling from the wheel side. Really mixed feelings at this point. I'm excited as all hell because its only an axle change and not pulling and rebuilding part of the transmission, but I'm mad as hell that it could have been solved earlier.

The false diagnosis was just a perfect storm. When I orginally looked under the car it was being pushed and I saw the driveshaft spinning, and thought it was because the wheels were rolling, turning the diff, and spinning the shaft. When parked it wouldnt move anywhere and there was no noise because both axles were detached from the differential = no bars clunking around. What's done is done and I get axles out and take them to the shop with the car.

Over at All American, Dave busts out and installs the new axles in a few minutes. We also took this time to tighten a loose powersteering pulley (belt was walking off), and found out my suspension was really loose. I had been having a SERIOUS wheel wobble at full angle and attributed it to maybe wheel spaces? bad steering rack? worn out tie rods? Turns out, the lower collar on the passenger front was loose, allowing the coilover to jiggle in the sleeve... That didn't seem enough of a issue to cause what I was experiencing. Checking on the driver's side and there it is. The entire top camber plate was loose. Allowing free roaming of the coilover. As a 240sx turns and gains steering angle, the coilover rotates on the pillowball mount and allows some increased camber to happen as the lower mount is rotated with the wheel. My loose camber plate allowed the camber to be incredibly unstable and jump around causing the wobble. This was all in theory, but makes sense- test event was coming up in 3 days so we would know soon.

Next, we installed a new set of tie rods, making sure we had no weakness in the steering. Lastly, John completed the exhaust system. Previously we had a 'band-aid' on the headers to x-pipe section, and we took care of that now. The car sounds pretty sexy out of the dual bullets now.

I headed out to the local practice skid pad at Central Florida Racing Complex on Saturday (the 18th). I was the 3rd car to arrive and tech in. Pulling up to the starting line, anxious to finally drive again and we get the go ahead. The course was really technical and appeared slow speed so for my first run I tossed her in 2nd and let it rip. Felt really good to be sideways again and hear that roar of the LS1 behind me. Was suprised to find out the 2nd turn was much bigger than it appeared and I should have been in 3rd. I finish out the run and got really deep in the angle around the last turn, nearly spinning out.... AWESOME... NO WHEEL WOBBLE. So the steering is awesome now.

Next run I throw in 3rd and give a clutch kick to enter and kkkrkrkrkrkkccahsshsss. Are you kidding me? I break what now? 3rd?  I throw it in 2nd and try it, kkkrkrshshshshs.... nope not the transmission, sounds like its the rear end. Seems to calm down in a straight line and get gnarly in a turn... Must be my KAAZ 2-way LSD right? Makes sense... Frustrated to all hell I park her in the spectator area and walk all the way back to grid to instruct for the day. Unfortunately, because I was there on time and within 10 minutes of track being hot, was broken, there was no action shots that I could find. I still got attention from the photogs and have been included in their blogs, and forum posts. So at least my hard parking skills are paying off.

At the end of the practice day, a few friends from Enjuku Racing were there and Adam helped me look into the issue. He was under the car on jack stands, and immediately could tell I had broken the CV joint on the passenger side again. This time the snap wasn't complete and full so thats why there was so much noise. Just trying to limp her to the trailer it came more and more apart, spilling its guts onto the pavement. Get some help from some spectators and Adam, pushing the car up the trailer.

This Friday is a big practice/demo event in South Florida with Palm Beach International Raceway. I am installing yet another set of stock axles to take her down there and bringing a 2nd spare set to the track. Considering both the axles issues I've had were all on a 3rd gear clutch kick, I am going to stick to ebrake and roll on throttle drifting for this event. No hard kicks on the clutch. I am going to be upgrading the axles soon, but in order to not miss events, I will get the stocks ones fixed.