[DeTomaso] Squeaky suspension

[Sam]

I looked on the Hall site and they still sell the kit I bought 25 years ago. The price has gone up quite a bit but I encourage everyone to use something like Mike’s or the Hall type design.

From: MikeLDrew at aol.com 
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2013 2:20 PM
To: shbailey at att.net ; detomaso at poca.com 
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Squeaky suspension


In a message dated 10/15/13 3 44 1, shbailey at att.net writes:



  Mike Drew covered the concern for frozen shafts in the hub carrier. He is correct about this concern. When I built my car Hall Panera had a mod for that, He sold shafts that were machined to a accept grease at the bearing locations. All you had to do was drill and tap the carrier at the bearings for zerk fittings.



>>>My car is equipped with a different version, which are no longer be available?  Mine shafts have a zerk fitting in one end, and are gun-drilled through the center and then have holes and cavities to allow grease to get between the shaft and the inner sleeve, although it does not address the hub carrier bearings.

I don't know why they are no longer available, as they work quite well.  I was dreading the task of removing them for inspection, but was pleasantly surprised that they came out with nothing but gentle taps.  The fit is absolutely precise, there was grease from one end to the other, and in general, things were all tickety-boo.

Having said that, I made no attempt to remove the sleeve from the center of the hub carrier.  Ideally, the shaft and sleeve are to remain fixed together, and the sleeve is supposed to rotate inside the hub carrier bearings. The current kits are designed to promote this, by enabling a grease path from the underside of the hub carrier, through to the outside of the sleeve, and thence to the bearings. 

http://hallpantera.com/cgi-bin/p/awtp-product.cgi?d=hallpantera-inc&item=22512

This keeps things rotating nicely, but doesn't address the issue of the center shaft potentially rusting to the inside of the sleeve.

In this scenario, the suspension will operate perfectly well but could be next to impossible to take apart.  I think the ideal scenario would be to have both types of lubrication.  (I really have no way of knowing if my sleeves are rotating in the hub carriers as intended, or if my suspension is rotating on the shaft instead, which would certainly be less optimal).

Mike