Off Road SHO Posted February 22, 2015 Posted February 22, 2015 Broke the fender stay on the other front fender today just as I was on the way home from a 50 mile blat with SWMBO. Broke in the exact same spot as the other fender stay did, just next to the hub mount flange. I will fix it like I did the other by inserting a 1/2" steel insert, button welding it in and then, while it is mounted and aligned, welding around the break. Tom
Klasik-69 Posted February 23, 2015 Posted February 23, 2015 Are these stock Caterham stays ? I have never broken one yet in spite of racing on some rough tracks including Chasing The Dragon. Yours are breaking near the spindle hub which has almost no stress due to the angle mount just above it, or so it seems.
Off Road SHO Posted February 23, 2015 Author Posted February 23, 2015 No, Mine is a superformance S-1, and they welded the round tube stay to a flat plate that is bolted to the upright. The tube stay vibrates with mass of the fender moving it easily, but the flat mount does not. They should have used oval tubing in my opinion. Tom
Klasik-69 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 I'm not familiar with Superformance but I don't think they offer parts for their 7's. Caterham is not without fault either. I've had to modify parts along the way too. There's a lot of vibration on GTR front fender/stay but mine haven't broken yet. I modified mine to fit my new fiberglass front wings, TIG weled all the metal. A little heavy but rugged.
Off Road SHO Posted February 26, 2015 Author Posted February 26, 2015 (edited) I got it back together tonight and went for a blat to test it out. I don't suppose anybody here would need to see how I fixed it, but if you do, shout out and I'll upload some pics I took along the way. Incidently, I found a round tag with my build number, 55, stuck on the underside of the fender. I wonder how many other parts have the build number on them. Tom Edited February 26, 2015 by Off Road SHO
speedwagon Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 My s1 has had both stays rebuilt in a similar fashion and now trailer fenders as one of the glass ones rotated and got ran over. If you own a s1 you need to be a fabricator, but the seating sure is comfortable.
DaveStruve Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 No, Mine is a superformance S-1, and they welded the round tube stay to a flat plate that is bolted to the upright. The tube stay vibrates with mass of the fender moving it easily, but the flat mount does not. They should have used oval tubing in my opinion. Tom If there is movement it will continue to break. It's just work hardening it until it fails. Since I built mine from scratch and read about everyones fender failures, I made sure to really over build them and borrow elements from successful designs. I get zero movement from the fender with this design. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1300_zps8bdb4165.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1310_zps6d4fb2c8.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1303_zps8d92a4bc.jpg
Off Road SHO Posted March 2, 2015 Author Posted March 2, 2015 Both of my breaks were in the horizontal stay, not the near verticle one, and both broke right at the end of the flat mounting plate. I inserted a solid piece of 1/2" steel rod (2" into each side), with 2 rosette welds per side and then a bead at the original break (after grinding the ends to 45 degrees first of course).
Off Road SHO Posted October 8, 2017 Author Posted October 8, 2017 Dang! Broke again at the same spot. I need to design some ovalness into thesae stays. Tom
RGTorque Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 i dont even remember how many times ive broken my fender stays. i consider them consumables at this point
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