However, the successfully prevented tragedies typically take a back-seat, since (it would seem) rating are higher when people can sit in the comfortable couch of 'obviously that was a bad idea'.
So, it would appear, in a subsequent effort lower my own ratings; I am going to educate my readers in the importance of 'double checking' and thus 'obvious safety'. I am going to tell you exactly why I did not go racing this past Tuesday (2 Nov 2010).
The Rebuild
Well this is rather embarrassing. It seems I was learning so much while replacing the head-gasket and inspecting three dozen other systems, that I forgot to take a single picture of the event itself.
I took my kart to a friend's house where he and his brother gave my kart a proper inspection. These guys have been rebuilding cars and racing karts since they were wee-little-guys. They have rebuilt more than 50 classic cars and currently has 12 completely rebuilt motors sitting in the corner as well at 7 ready to work on cars and trucks. Their attitude of 'good enough' allowed for some quick progress to be made and many short-cuts taken. I am sure that at some point the effects of this 90% approach might make themselves apparent, but my driving skills are hardly to the point that it would make any sort of difference. In fact, mathematically, I believe the difference it will/would make are on the order of 0.5% difference to my racing abilities. So by the time I actually will need to even think about those last 10%, I'll need to rebuild the motor anyways.
So what did we do?
Took the parts pictured below, and inserted them into the parts pictured even more below. The part that I replaced was the head-gasket, which was indeed leaking. Slap some silicon grease on that baby (this is the 90% part) and the seal was good to go. Hurray, two problems solved with only one part replaced! After doing a quick test drive around the neighborhood, the ridiculous speed and smooth power suggested that all was well. Oh and finally a new spark plug (didn't index it, oh well).
A thank you to the guy (there's only one) at Innovative Karting for always being helpful as well.
Only problem remaining, brakes were botched again! The end of the road comes up on you rather quickly when you stomp on the brake pedal and it feels as though the kart is saying, "Can I help you with something?" No matter, I did not run off the road, but there was indeed nothing wrong with the brakes. They simply required some shims.
Shimming your brakes is a normal part of karting. Since these karts are so small, the brake system is kept simple and light. The consequence is that the brake pads only have a very limited distance they can travel before the entire system is 'out' of fluid. So as the pads get worn down (over the course of many races) the pads get thinner and thus they can not push hard on the brake rotors anymore. So to fix the problem drivers will put small plates of metal behind the brake pads to push them farther out and regain the braking power needed to stop these karts on a dime. It sounds like something that could be improved on, and it has been, but the new system costs money ($400) that I don't really need to spend since shimming the brakes is easy. Just to be sure the brakes were fine, my friends and I bled the brakes twice just to make sure there was no air bubbles (refer to an earlier post if you are not familiar with bleeding the brakes). As far as I'm concerned, this mustang is ready to roll!
So what's the delay?
A stitch, in time, saves nine. So what, this is racing, not knitting. Well I have only gone racing twice (almost three times), but I've always doubled checked my kart the night before. I look over every nut, bolt, lock-wire, etc. It is really boring.
So I bleed the front brakes and then bleed the back brakes, as always. Here is a picture of where the rear brake caliper is (right behind the seat)
And what do I notice? The bleeder nut on the rear brake (basically the main brake) doesn't really want to tighten. So I think, "oh no, I know what is going to happen when I test this." Sure enough I pull the brake pedal with my hand and...
That giant wet spot on the tire in the picture above is brake fluid that shot out of the rear brake caliper. I don't assume everyone reading this is mechanically inclined, so I'll go ahead and point out that this is a very bad thing. The bleeder nut shot out of the caliper and took all of the threads with it. If I had not does this night before check, this probably would have happened the next time I tried to stop really hard, which would likely be at the end of the straight-away at 80mph. So I am glad that I have formed this habit very early. So I will need to do a little bit of work to repair this new problem now.
Pictured above is the caliper and the arrow is pointing to where the bleeder valve fired out of and took all of the threads with it. You'll notice the hole in there is smooth, it should be ribbed with threads.
So I am glad that I did this night before check. It won't end up in the paper that I prevented my own tragedy, but what you won't see in the paper on yesterday's overly dramatic new paper:
"A 28 year-old male is hospitalized after he exploded off the end of the straight-away at PKRA doing more than 500 mile per hour in his 'go-kart' because of a 'brake system failure'. Authorities say video games are to blame. All fun is banned from human existence. Next up, the world figuratively 'holds its breath' as China and Russia take-turns holding a blue-ribbon in the Everyone-is-a-Winner Olympic Etch-a-Sketch finals"
So until next time, I'll be fixing the kart some more.
-S
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