Had an incident last night and slightly bent an axle. It’s a. OTK 1000mm “N” axle if that matters.
Anyhow, are you compromising performance by straightening an axle? It’s onky out about 1.5mm so “fixable” based on people I’ve talked to. But I’m concerned that it’s not going to be the same after fix as I was really finding my grove with the kart.
So new isn’t cheap but is it worth it? …or will a straightener axle still perform fine?
Side question. I got blasted in the right side? While kart airborne broke the seat when I landed, right side nerf bars bent pretty decent. When I pulled the axle it spun but not very well but I re-aligned the bearings and it spun fine again.
So does this thing need to go on a table to straighten the frame or is it possible the bearings shifted in their carriers during the impact ? Everything was behind the front end and when I threw lasers on it this morning the front end was exactly where it’s been all year.
Thanks in advance. First big shunt and want to get back to running out front not struggling with the kart after I put it back together.
I sent two axles off to PKT to straighten. At $55 a pop + shipping to and from it was still cheaper than one new Sprint axle. In speaking with them, they can return them to the same condition if they’re not too bad, ie- no wrinkles or kinks. And they can be straightened more than once as long as they never get wrinkled or kinked.
As for everything else, check for cracks and safety issues, but if it doesn’t feel weird to drive, I’d call it good. Without seeing pictures and\or in person to measure it, what you’re asking is as if I were to ask you how long this piece of string is that I have in my hand. Kinda hard to say, really… You could always take the wheels off and lay it on its frame on a level surface and take several vertical measurements along the frame on both sides to see if it got twisted.
Having recently dealt with a bent frame, the advice I got was, if you can feel the difference in how it handles from left to right and it’s a hindrance, you can either fix it or chuck it. Whichever is more economical. I’ve seen several people post that race teams are always getting rid of good frames that us recreational racers can use, but I’ve never seen any for sale or would know where to look. Perhaps that’s an option to explore?
Straightening axles is no big deal, shouldn’t affect performance. At the track we usually just use a mallet to straighten them.
Wouldn’t be a bad idea to put the kart on a table to check, but if you aren’t feeling any weirdness then it’s probably fine. If it’s going to bend, it’ll be at the front usually so if you didn’t have hard impact up there I would imagine it’s fine. It sounds like the seat and nerf bar took the brunt of the impact.
So The guys like my guy Jerry (kartworkz, PA) who run client kart programs (tent) goes to the biggies like supernats a) to race his son and b) to pick up stuff from J3 and the like.
He buys us their team “backup” engines that they use for just that one event. So, I can say my engine has been to the big show, if not me! It’s a good way to get a built engine that is fresh for relatively good price.