[DeTomaso] half shafts, small claims court-- was Near Disaster

Sat Aug 21 23:23:56 EDT 2010

Boyd,

In a parallel A-arm, half shaft suspension the half shaft does not hold the wheel on or support the suspension.
When I changed my half shafts the wheel did not fall off
The half shaft pieces simply slide into each other and will not hold anything together

I believe it is on the E-type Jag that the half shaft also acts as the upper parallel arm, so if a U-joint breaks the suspension collapses.  Not good.

Also, I think two witnesses that the car was delivered with the wheels on the correct sides and they were not when the problem occurred will convice a judge that they must have been removed at the shop.  I think anyone could see (with a little demonstration) that when the wheel nuts come loose the damage seen will result.  In California we have something called Small Claims Court that does not involve a lawyer.  Does New York have something similar?

Jim Oddie

-----Original Message-----
From: boyd casey <boyd411 at gmail.com>
To: Will Demelo <wdemelo at cogeco.ca>
Cc: MikeLDrew at aol.com; detomaso at realbig.com
Sent: Sat, Aug 21, 2010 5:33 pm
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Pantera near disaster

The studs were (are 12mm x 1.5) the other side as well as the two front
heels are perfect. . The alignment was done on a late model hunter machine
hat uses a computer and lasers and gives a before and after print out and
he alignment specs were close to perfect.
y inclination is toward  untightened lug nuts. . The alignment tech asked
e for the lug nut lock key when I dropped off the car. according to Hunters
eb sight there is a "wheels off" alignment that is sometimes done. The
lignment tech said he put shims in to align the back wheels. The final
traw is that I have directional wheels. On Saturday when I bled the brakes
i had two people helping me) I noticed when I put the first rear wheel on
hat I put the right wheel on the left side. I noticed it and mentioned it
o my friends (helpers) and switched the wheel to the correct side. My two
riends clearly remember this episode too. When I took my car off the tow
ruck the wheel that was bad was the left rear and it had the right side
ire on it. So someone at the alignment shop appears to be covering their
ss. I have know way of proving it. I wasn't present when they did the
lignment. The shop is very popular and has a wait to get in. Since it is 45
iles from my house I dropped the car off their on Wednesday and picked it
p an Thursday afternoon. So I think some one screwed up and didn't tighten
he lug nuts properly. I don't think their is any thing wrong with the
esign in fact I think is is superior to the stock design. the bearings are
etter. The axles are stronger, the cv joints are mechanically  superior to
alf shafts. The process to access the rear wheel bearings is simpler the
emoving the rear bearings on the stock risers and does not require a press.
nother improvement this design has over the stock design is that a failure
f a half shaft ( which is non existent in this design ) but the failure of
 CV joint will not result in the loss of a wheel. You can completely remove
he CV joint and the wheel will remain in place. I am not an engineer but I
on't think Mike  knows enough about this design to draw any factual
onclusions about it being inferior or superior to the original design and
here is no conclusive evidence that this incident was the result of a
esign flaw. I believe it is allot more likely that the failure was the
esult of some human error in the assembly ( like lug nuts not being
ightened) When the replacement parts come I will reassemble the car and go
ver everything with a fine tooth comb.
oyd
On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Will Demelo <wdemelo at cogeco.ca> wrote:
> Mike has a good suggestion with looking at the other side. It may give you
 clues as to what is going to happen.
 W
 ----- Original Message ----- From: <MikeLDrew at aol.com>
 To: <boyd411 at gmail.com>; <detomaso at realbig.com>
 Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 7:15 PM
 Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Pantera near disaster

> In a message dated 8/21/10 15 56 52, boyd411 at gmail.com writes:
>
>
>  The alignment tech claims he did not take the wheels off so I
>> have no way of knowing what the cause was. If anyone has any suggestions
>> I
>> would be interested in hearing any theories.
>>
>>
> How about dramatically underengineered and wholly unnecessary replacements
> for perfectly good stock parts?   I would never, ever take a chance with
> ever running those new hubs assemblies even before this episode, but now?
> One
> would have to be suicidal to do so, I think.   Read what you wrote:
>
> " I could have been killed or the wheel could have come
> completely off and the damage could easily have been well into the
> thousands
> of dollars."
>
> I have been very skeptical about this whole project from the start; when I
> looked at the parts, they seemed pretty, but there doesn't seem to be any
> true science behind them.   To me, it looks like somebody just started
> with a
> bunch of material and started whittling until the pieces that were left
> resembled Pantera parts.
>
> Now, I can't honestly claim that I know the level of engineering analysis
> that went into the design of the stock components, and I will admit that
> the
> stock axles leave a bit to be desired, in the long run.   But there's no
> question that the stock components are superior, by orders of magnitude,
> to the
> home-made, cobbled-up affair that nearly killed you today.
>
> Curious--what does the other side look like at the moment?
>
> Mike (SO glad you learned your lesson the (relatively) easy way!)
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