What do you saftey wire?

The engine/transaxle that came in my car had the primary exhaust pipe to engine cap screws, and the half-shaft to transaxle drive flange bolts saftey wired, which seemes pretty reasonable. What other fasteners so you serious racers consider important to wire?
 

Dutton

Lifetime Supporter
John,

Pick up a copy of Carrol Smiths book, 'Prepare to Win.' I promise you, anything and everything that has to do with preparing a winning car will be found inside. An excellent read and highly recommended.

One thing it does not cover, however, is the loose nut behind the wheel...

Best,

T.
 
John: Safety anything you don't want to come loose or you'd like to visibly check if the fastener has loosened such as wheel knock-offs. Where it's not practical to use nylocks or other locking devices on critical nuts or bolts such as steering and suspension components, wire them. Not so easy are ZF gearbox ring gear-to-carrier bolts. They should be Loctited and safety wired, too.

Ditto on Carrol Smith's books.
 
Hi John,
We have a Daniels Manufacturing Corp. Saftey cable tool at work. Its works fantastic.....
Regards,
Scott


We use it for safties that are very difficult to access. Situations where your hands can't go, but are accessed in a straight line. We however do not use them for safties that will be inside a component part with rotating/moving parts. Like a transmission. In that situation only .040 wire would be used. Of course there might be an application that I have not seen yet, that does use the Daniels tool for those situations.
 
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Doug S.

The protoplasm may be 72, but the spirit is 32!
Lifetime Supporter
toy264 said:
The engine/transaxle that came in my car had the primary exhaust pipe to engine cap screws, and the half-shaft to transaxle drive flange bolts saftey wired, which seemes pretty reasonable. What other fasteners so you serious racers consider important to wire?

Perhaps the most common use for safety wires I've seen involves the bolts holding the flywheel to the crankshaft. Loc-tite has always worked for me, but I've known others whose bolts backed out. Not pretty.

I notice Scott's post above mentions not using safety wires in a rotating component (or perhaps he's referring to using the Daniels tool rather than safety wiring in general). As for using wire on the flywheel bolts, I've often wondered what effect that might have on the engine balance.

Doug
 
Any tips on drilling the cap screw heads- I seem to break at least one drill bit every other part (yes, I use a fixture on the drill press, and the bits are sharp :) I've thought about getting some eloxed (EDM) but it's expensive for just a few parts.
 
Pegasus racing supplies has all the AN size bolts that you would ever need and they come in completely undrilled, drilled shank only, drilled head only or drilled head and shank. All you have to supply is the nominal lenght and the grip lenght. Prices run from $.19 to around $8-10 apiece. Most of the drilled ones you would have to call for pricing. Saw one for as high as $17, but one, one half inch shorter in lenght was only $2.59. Go figure


Bill
 
I work for the FAA in the Flight Inspection area. The Daniels tool has been a great addition at our hangar as well. Wire and a zip tool are still the preferred method, but the Daniels straight pull has never failed us either.
 
crossle43 said:
John,

Pick up a copy of Carrol Smiths book, 'Prepare to Win.' I promise you, anything and everything that has to do with preparing a winning car will be found inside. An excellent read and highly recommended.

Best,

T.
T.--
I read through Smith's book last night, and agree that is a terrific read! I was surprised to see how adamant he is against the use of SAE grade fasteners, at least for fine threads! All this time I've paid the extra for grade 8 hardware thinking it was the best! Now I have to find a source for AN/MIL spec aircraft fasteners. At least they can be had pre-drilled.
Like Roseanne Roseanadana says, "It's always something."
John
 

Doug S.

The protoplasm may be 72, but the spirit is 32!
Lifetime Supporter
toy264 said:
Like Roseanne Roseanadana says, "It's always something."
John

One of my favorite lines, John! Good to see that great minds think alike!!

Doug
 
Hey Dudes !

Dug...
I would'nt use the Daniels tool inside a component part like a transmission.
Safety wire WON'T affect the balance to ANY degree that would be of negative consequence on a GT40.

John...
Altough you can purchase so called "AN" or "MS" hardware from non aviation sources, if you wan't the real deal, buy from a source like AVIALL or another industry source.
Bogus hardware is a HUGE problem in aviation and I would suspect that what you get from a speed shop is a fake. An aircraft supplier will provide documentation of the hardware's authenticity.
Go to FAA.GOV, download a copy of AC43.13 1B, or buy one.
You'll dig it !

toy264...
Buy the real thing, then you won't have to bother with drilling.

jcdean...
What do you do for the FAA?

Best regards,
Scott
 
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