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Sad Day for my TR4A


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I think that one accident such as this is a message to all IRS TR owners, despite looking after his car the failure still occurred.

 

most of the forum readers will not be surprised by the component failure, for its a hard working part, very old, and not simple to inspect. So what should be done?

 

If this kind of thing happened on a modern car, usually the manufacturer would recall the offending models for modification. This isn't going to happen here as we all know.

 

There must be many IRS drivers unaware of the possibility of such a deadly failure. Luckily the driver in this case appears unhurt, but had the failure occurred at speed on an M way who knows what could happen.

 

Perhaps it would be an idea to publish the pictures of this accident in Traction, and suggest that these items should be renewed as a matter of course. Or shall the status quo be maintained in case of poor publicity,

 

litigation, or heads in the sand it won't happen to me prevail.

 

Thank god mines a TR4, but we should try and pass this information on to as many IRS drivers as possible I suggest.

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Thank god mines a TR4, but we should try and pass this information on to as many IRS drivers as possible I suggest.

don't feel safe because of a TR4 - can happen to ALL TRs:

04.0709Spa6Classic044.jpg

Edited by MadMarx
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Gutted, do you know what component failed, thats important.

 

It appears as though both rear wheels have fallen off?

Edited by pfenlon
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Only the left shaft broke. It broke at the spot where the grove comes up to the surface of the cone.

These shafts did about 200000km. Many km on the Nordschleife since year 1991. In 2004 they faced the first racing stress and broke after 6 years of racing.

 

What we found out so far, there are several things which cause breaking:

 

1. High forces does put a count down on the shaft because the design is a cheap and simple one. Porsche for example uses splines at this point.

2. if the key is mounted wrong and slips past the notches it creates multi directional stress on the shaft which cause a break quite quickly. I most cases this happens if the axles have been refurbished

3. corrosion. Some times moisture enters from the key and corrosion starts. This corrosion can lead to snap the axle.

 

I think that on street cars there is not too much of a problem if these axles are correctly refurbished. It is a good idea to grind down the key so it can't create any stress to the axle shaft.

If I install the wheel flange I set on the flange to the shaft first and slip in the key after and only so deep that it is flush with the flange. No chance for the key to slip in deeper and doing dangerous things. I also use keys made out of lathe tool steel.

 

If the seals have to be renewed always a good idea to magnaflux the axles. Even very tiny cracks show up then.

 

On my race car I dismantle the axle shafts every year and inspect them very thoroughly.

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Thank you for the information Madmarx, from your comments it seems you would have to do an awful lot of abuse to cause the breakage, and I would ask if anyone worldwide knows of a road car suffering the same problem?

 

Splines instead of a woodruf key is typical of the difference in costs, where the Porsche shaft would probably be several times the cost of the Triumph half shaft.

 

Triumph did though have major advantage over the Porsche, they did fit the engine at the right end of the car. Tongue firmly in cheek .

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Here in Germany we have from time to time rear axles break. Maybe because of the higher speed we can go here.

Most of these axles broke were refurbished.

Edited by MadMarx
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Triumph did though have major advantage over the Porsche, they did fit the engine at the right end of the car. Tongue firmly in cheek .

I prefer my Triumph to racing instead of my Porsche.

Triumph is easier to drive.

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Any axle and/or hub assembly will give up the ghost eventually, nothing lasts for ever. The youngest TR was built 32 years ago, the oldest 60 years back.

 

Sorry, but that is not a reason for wholesale upgrade of every damn thing on the car, "just in case".

 

Different matter if you are tuning the engine to give more power and torque, that justifies an upgrade of an axle originally designed to handle 100bhp, and which in the case of a 6-cylinder TR in standard tune is already handling 20-40% more than it was originally envisaged.

 

Bear in mind also the cars ran on 4" or 4.5" rims with tyres of 5.60 or 5.90 cross ply, 155 or 165 80 profile radial width. Fit 6" rims with 195/60 sticky modern tyres and you are routinely subjecting the axle and hub to far more stress than the original wheel and tyre fitment could ever impose.

 

Caveat emptor . . . .

 

Cheers

 

Alec

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Joskin,

 

Very sorry to hear of this. The problem we have these days is most cars have more grip, more power is readily available and those original parts aren't getting any younger.

 

I agree these types of failures aren't always forseeable. There are plenty of alternatives on the market, from brand new replacement items right through to very expensive solutions...just last week I had my car fitted with one of the expensive options, which wasn't a doddle to fit so hopefully will be a fit and forget job! With an extra extra 30% bhp I didn't want to take the chance.

 

Steve

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FWIW I fitted significantly upgraded rear hubs 3 sweeks ago for just this reason.

No connection, but I paid £350 exchange to ALASDAIR SOUTHALL who has a website:

http://www.powersteeringforclassiccars.co.uk/index.htm

He seems to be a proper engineer and reckons he is now unable to use so many of the exchange hubs because of wear and tear that he is developing a complete new driveshaft and hub assembly with pukka bearings etc which will sell for a target price of £800 for a pair.

Hubs aren't mentioned on the website but his contact details are.

I said that if they were good enough he would probably sell loads of them.

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Hi

 

My insures have come back to me and unfortunately declared my TR4A as a Total Loss, does anyone have experience of how they view a Classic Cars market value.

 

I paid £11.500 for the car 4 years ago and have spent a lot of money getting it in top condition since; will that and the relatively healthy current market be reflected in the settlement offer?

 

Could I make the case for replacement in the current market.

 

Thanks

 

Joskin

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Unless you have an agreed value it will be hard to get proper reinstatement value.

If you're not happy with the offer, make it a condition that they let you have the salvage for nothing.

That way you can fix it if you think it's worth it or at least sell the bits.

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Joskin,

 

Sorry to hear your news!

 

However, might be worth you taking a 'considered' view of the position , and if you can negotiate the salvage , maybe it would be viable to repair locally ?

 

Whatever, goodluck.

Best wishes

 

Bob.

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