Touch your nuts!

[PDenbigh]

Thought I'd post up a "lessons learned" thread from an experience I had this weekend at Summit.

Usually before every event, I go through and "touch my nuts" on about everything that either moves, is a critical component, or has a tendency to loosen (usually high heat or vibration areas). This includes things like suspension pivots, driveshaft bolts, brake calipers, turbo/exhast parts, etc. If it's an area that is really prone to loosening, I implement further safeguards such as wiring them, using various locknuts, etc.

Well, life is busy right now, and I barely had time to get the car together, yet alone "touch my nuts." I figured it'd be ok. Guess who was wrong?

Going into T1 at about 125, I hit the brake zone pretty hard. For about 0.5 seconds, I feel a big vibration from the front wheels. That turned into a good "clunk", a lack of control, a 30 degree angle slide at about 100mph, and finally a last minute bail at the paved runout to the left of T1.

Turns out that the bottom bolt of my brake caliper/spindle connection came loose and ejected itself. Under hard braking, the caliper flipped up, jammed into the rim, sliced the rim in half, and then jammed so hard it stopped the wheel compleetly while bending and wrecking a bunch of other stuff under there. Weekend was over :-(. Had I touched my nuts, weekend would have been awesome!

This could have ended a LOT worse. I feel so fortunate that all I did was bend some stuff and slide straight off the track. Much worse things have happened at T1 when brakes go wrong. Fortunately, mine failed in a way that locked the wheel versus failing "open."

Pics:










(that's a 3/8 stainless steal bracket that should be straight)

[D_Eclipse9916]

Sorry to hear buddy, unfortunately it happens. I do a "nut and bolt" everytime before going to the track, but I admit to not checking multiple times because I was in a hurry.

[davej]

wow. just wow. hock: glad it was a fairly uneventful ending into the runoff and everyone was alright, but some serious carnage to that wheel!

[Jake]

Wow. I saw the one photo on the Facebooks and... damn. Glad things turned out alright for you (relatively) - I try to always check and double-check things, but even still, I get a little bit paranoid over every last thump and clunk.

[Senor_Taylor]

Are the pictures broken for anyone else?

[BLINGMW]

Are the pictures broken for anyone else?

ya

sounds pretty exciting Pete, glad it turned out *ok* :o

[davej]

Are the pictures broken for anyone else?

You can copy/paste IMG source, or for the lazy, look below for copies.

[ScottyB]

so sorry dude. its all fixable at least, but thats a huge bummer. a good reminder for all of us though!

looking at that last shot just drove home how lucky it was that none of the brake lines ripped out or got cut through the whole fiasco

[CaptainHenreh]

Probably wouldn't hurt to safety wire your nuts either.