To Do List For End Of Season Maintenance
At the end of a hard year of racing, our race cars are ready for a good looking over. It needs a hard cleaning and some much needed repair work that we might not have even been aware of. This is the time, now that we actually have the time, to tear the car down, remove all of the mechanical systems and do a thorough cleaning and inspection.
Our subject car used for photos is the 119 Coleman car which Dalton Zehr drove while still living in Florida. This was well before his move to the UP, or Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
The “working on the car” part of racing is as much fun for many teams as the actual racing. It represents most of the time spent in your racing effort for sure. So, once the season has ended, it can be a lot of fun to go over the car and make sure it is put in perfect condition to start the new season. If done right, you can end up with an As-new car.
It is best to go through the car in a systematic way, overlooking nothing mechanical that might need attention from the replacement of worn parts to the repair of damage from hard racing. We’ll start with the front and work our way to the rear.
Preparing the Car For Inspection – The very first step in this process is to remove the engine and transmission, radiator, exhaust system, fuel tank, and any body parts that will be scrapped. Once all of those are out of the way, we can proceed to clean the car.
I suggest using a portable power washer to remove all of the dirt and oils on the frame and body parts. You can choose a site outside the garage where you won’t make too much of a mess. Spray around all of the tubing on the chassis, up under the car where we have run over someone else’s oil, and try to get to all of the tire rubber pieces that have accumulated during the season.
One of the primary reasons we do this thorough cleaning is not only for appearance purposes, but so we can inspect the welds and other joints on the frame and roll cage for any fatigue or cracks. Broken welds, cracked frame members and broken shock mounts account for many on-track failures and this is a great opportunity to find those flaws.
Front Suspension – We need to remove all of the control arms, steering assembly, spindles, etc. if we haven’t done that before the cleaning. Lay the parts out on the garage floor and carefully inspect each one for any signs of cracking, bending or breaks at the welded seams.
Remove all of the heim joints, ball joints, steering box or rack, and idler arm assemblies (on a drag link system), and test for excess play and wear. Replace all of the joints that are worn. Check the steering box or rack for excess play and worn seals. It might be a good time to overhaul the steering or send it back to the manufacturer for a re-build.
Inspect the engine mounts, front hoop tubing, upper control arm mounts, and any areas where fatigue might have caused cracking or breaking of the metal. Once all of the inspection has been done and all repairs have been made, it might be a good idea to paint the front clip. If you plan on doing a complete repaint of the cars frame, do the rest of the inspection first.
Shock Mounts – While the front of the car is apart, do a close inspection of the shock mounts both on the upper mounts as well as the lower control arm. This is one area of high stress that needs to be looked after. If you see signs of cracking or breaking, rethink how the shock is mounted and do some re-engineering to better support the shock to reduce fatigue.
Some typical problems stem from the upper mount flexing on the tubing that it is attached to. Every stock car that uses coil-over shocks should have a cross brace that attaches to the upper shock mount, or as close as possible to it. This brace reduces the flexing and rotational twisting of the tubing that the shock is mounted to.
Even with stock spring designs, the shock is still working hard, especially with bump setups, and it is attached to the upper hoop bars. Use the same procedure as coil over shocks when mounting them on stock clip cars.
Lower Control Arms – The ball joint sockets and the inner mount portions of the lower control arms (or struts) are the most stressed areas of this part, aside from the shock mount. We need to pay attention to the overall condition of the arm and look for fatigue and cracking around the mounting areas.
Check the arm for straightness as well as fatigue areas. If the car has been in contact with other cars or the wall and the arms have not been replaced, then there might be hidden damage and now would be a great time to order a new one.
Engine Mounts – This is another area where there might be hidden damage. Any sudden stops that might not have otherwise cause obvious damage might have bent or cracked the engine mounts. The motor is the heaviest piece that is bolted onto the car and the mounts are mostly engineered to reduce rotational movement, not fore and aft movement.
Front and rear end hits can cause damage to the motor mounts. We cannot do a good inspection of these mounts with the motor in the car, so now is the time to carefully inspect them.
If you have had to space the motor up a significant distance to avoid having the oil pan scrape or to meet the rules, now might be a good time to raise the actual mounts so there is less spacing needed. The engine will be much more secure and resist fore and aft movement by using less spacers.
Sources:
Allstar Performance
www.allstarperformance.com
269-463-8000
AR Bodies
www.arbodies.com
615-643-8827
Capital Motorsports Warehouse
www.cmwraceparts.com
800-278-2692
Coleman Racing
www.colemanracng.com
800-221-1851
DMI / Bulldog Rear Ends
www.diversifiedracing.com
717-397-5347
Five Star Bodies
www.fivestarbodies.com
262-877-2171
Frankland Racing
www.franklandracing.com
888-873-2736
G-Force Racing Gear
www.gforce.com
Hans Performance Products
www.hansdevice.com
888-654-7223
Hawk Brakes
www.hawkperformance.com
330-722-4295
Moser Engineering
www.moserengineering.com
260-726-6689
Performance Friction Brakes – PFC Brakes
www.performancefriction.com
800-521-8874
Port City Race Cars
231-767-8586
www.portcityracecars.com
QA1
www.qa1.net
800-721-7761
Quick Performance
www.quickperformance.com
515-232-0126
RaceQuip
www.racequip.com
813-642-6644
Race Day Safety
www.racedaysafety.com
770-505-0193
Rod End Supply
www.rodendsupply.com
800-284-2902
Simpson Racing
www.simpsonraceproducts.com
800-654-7223
Superior Fuel Cells
www.superiorfuelcells.com
541-895-4224
The Joie of Seating
www.lajoieracing.com
704-795-7474
Turn One Steering
www.turnone-steering.com
989-759-4206
Wilwood Motorsports
www.wilwood.com
805-388-1188
Winters Performance
www.wintersperformance.com
717-764-9844
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