Early Day - PreRace Prep

My wife and daughters are going out of town today for a few days, so I plan on running an endurance race. Today is my early day....the day before I go to work I get up at 4 a.m. and is usually when I do in-depth slot car stuff. Can't race since it's too noisy, so I take stuff into the basement and get the tools out.
It's worth noting that this is primarily for the two newer cars, and the older cars will just be checked and cleaned and adjusted if necessary.

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Porsche 962C Leyton House

Before I started today, I had decided I needed to stop some of the noise that was coming out of this car. After all, a smooth-running race car is a fast race car. But this car has been suffering from vibration, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

The body is split into two pieces, and the vibration is coming from somewhere. Time to locate it.

So far the most that I've done is to sand the tires, lube/oil gears/axles, and rebuild the front end. I knew I wasn't finished yet, and the noise reminded me of that. This is the same thing the #8 Ford suffered from initially, and that required a pretty significant Dremel job, trimming down the chassis to stop the vibration. I opened the Porsche up and took a look.

The body is a two-piece design, almost 50/50. The seam can be clearly seen running across the middle of the car, looking like the point where the cowling meets the body. There are a few connections, but plenty of spots where there wasn't any contact other than two pieces of plastic butting up against each other. The body made a crinkling sound when I handled it. I dabbed a few areas with glue to add a bit of a seal and help stop the vibration.

I also added rubber gaskets to the body posts on the chassis to help cut vibrations. I really like these things. After running a few laps with them installed the car has significantly less vibration and noise. They were a gift to me from a friend who does lots of racing. I have a limited supply, but should be able to fix up a few more cars with them. I only use them when needed, and not just to pack the car.

If you look closely you can see the rubber gaskets added to each of the mounting posts, as well as to the two front posts on the pod. The back post on this car is a little finicky. I find it's pretty easy to over-tighten, which brings the back end of the car up into the body. With the rubber gaskets, once I get the initial resistance the rubber provides, I stop tightening. The body now sits on top of the car making contact only through rubber.

I also did another lube/oil change. The car is ready to race.

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1966 Ford GT40 #5

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  - Bert Lance

I've discovered that sometimes the best thing to do is just to blow the dust off, check the tightening, and put the top back on. I did this for a long time with the #11 GT40, and it worked like a charm. That car still shows hardly any signs of aging and is running great. So that's the plan with this car. I'll keep it clean, lubed, oiled and sanded, but I'm not going to add parts that aren't needed.

A practically perfect car.

There are a few things that need to be done to the Ford, however. One of those was to add motor mounting screws. I went ahead and added one to the exposed hole, but didn't mess with the other one as the allotted space is very limited, through my experience. I also decided not to add gaskets [with exception to the two front pod posts] to this car as I don't think they're really needed.

No fancy gaskets or other gadgets on this car. Nothing but a little lube and oil.

Another thing I'll need to do is the same thing I had to do to the other two Fords, and that's to cut the end bell pin so the tire doesn't rub on it. This happened to both other cars, as when fully revved, the tires tend to expand as they spin. It's too early to fire up the Dremel, so I'll do that later today.

That pin is so close to that tire that on straights they'll rub together.

I lubed/oiled the car again and checked the screws. I also re-glued the tailpipe assembly to the body. It had fallen out. This car is ready to race.