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Material thickness, ally vs steel
DIY Si - 5/6/14 at 08:53 AM

I'm nearing the end of my suspension build and am now in need of a set of the spacers/brackets similar to those that Caterham use on their De-Dion set up. It turns out that the Caterham ones are 28-30mm thick (they taper to give a set camber), which is as bit thicker than I had planned for as I thought they were only roughly 1/2" thick. My fault really as I should have checked it beforehand, but it's now a bit late for that!

The part in question is the bracket that holds the bearing carrier to the end of the main tube:



Since I don't have much room to play with under the back of a Sprite if I were to need thinner brackets, and change the material from ally to steel, roughly what thickness would it need to be to have the same strength?

mark chandler - 5/6/14 at 10:30 AM

If you reduce this you risk having to also shortern the half shafts, have a good wobble and check the free play in various axle positions.

I believe Ali over steel is multiply by 1.5 as a rule of thumb, would it not be easier to get wheels that have a very shallow offset and leave alone?

DIY Si - 5/6/14 at 12:35 PM

quote:
Originally posted by mark chandler
If you reduce this you risk having to also shortern the half shafts, have a good wobble and check the free play in various axle positions.

I believe Ali over steel is multiply by 1.5 as a rule of thumb, would it not be easier to get wheels that have a very shallow offset and leave alone?


The drive shafts will have to be made to suit anyway, as a Sprite is so narrow nothing off the shelf fits. The wheels I already have unfortunately, as I ended up buying a set when I thought I had it all sorted out, and don't want to change them now, as they only just clear the front brakes as it is.....

I may not need to do this at all yet, as I haven't done the final fitting to the shell, so there may be enough room so this doesn't matter. It's more a case of if I find a problem then I have a way round it!