Author Topic: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!  (Read 12528 times)

Offline ricardo1967

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My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« on: October 01, 2014, 07:54:31 PM »
I good friend was racing his RED this weekend at Brown County Dragway (Bean Blossom, IN), business as usual. He does his 128 MPH / 5.99 sec pass (throttle stop) and goes for another round. Then right after the burnout, he hears a loud bang and the rest is history, both front lower rails cracked open!

Car bio: '97 Spitzer Dragster, alky injected 477 BBC

What do you guys think? Repairable? Slip a pipe inside and weld it together? Does it need to be front-halved? Spitzer estimated $2k+ to front-half it...

BCD is not the smoothest track, but I wonder if this is a trailer-induced fatigue crack. Although his roundtrip to the track is only 42 miles.

Offline wideopen231

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2014, 09:27:35 PM »
I would sleave it inside rosebud weld bothe sides then weld it up and be good to go
Relecting obama is like shooting right foot because it did not hurt enough when you shot left foot

Offline BK

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2014, 03:49:47 AM »
And block it up when your towing.

Offline rooman

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2014, 04:55:21 AM »
Been there, done that!   Although my customer broke the uprights out and not the frame rails themselves. He only raced locally (longest trip was to Terre Haute) but not supporting the car in the trailer is definitely the issue. Cars take much more of a beating in the trailer than they do on the track.  Besides supporting the car it is also a good idea to tie it down so that it can't bounce up off the support and then crash down.
  Sleeves and rosette welds will fix it but he will have to cut the top rails as well and split the car to get a reasonable length sleeve into the lower rails. He may also have to go into the rail at the upright with a drum sander to clean up the inside diameter depending on the quality of the weld where the upright lands.
    It is possible to put a sleeve in the lower without cutting the car in two but it involves some more work. The trick is to slot the rail on one side of the split and put a hole in the sleeve so that you can use a pin punch to slide the sleeve into the rail, line up the other half and then slide the sleeve back so that it is centered. In this case I would put the slot in the front half, under the upright. I replaced the top rails in the engine bay of Gary Densham's funny car a few years back using this method and it worked out great. When I talked to Steve Plueger about it later (he built the car) he said that it was how he did it too.

Roo
Yeah, I am from the south--any further south and I would have been a bloody penguin.

dreracecar

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #4 on: October 02, 2014, 09:24:28 AM »
Very common breakage area for frames of that design,  Slice and tap back weld and add some rosetts.
Question, cant see the front clearly, but is the lower frame rail end exposed in the front? If it is or the cap can be removed easy, Go from there to tap the sleeve back once incerted into the broken end, then you wont have to deal with slicing the rail. Generally around a $200 or less fix

Offline ricardo1967

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #5 on: October 02, 2014, 09:52:20 AM »
Hi Guys, thanks a lot for all the input, much appreciated.

I was actually hoping you guys would say this would cost thousands of $'s, so it would be easier to convince my friend to start looking for a FED instead  ;)

As a starter, I'm convincing him to join this selected forum.

Offline wideopen231

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #6 on: October 02, 2014, 01:25:26 PM »
We never said that fixing a REd instead of getting a FED showed good taste.LMAO
Relecting obama is like shooting right foot because it did not hurt enough when you shot left foot

Offline Solid Rock

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Thanks for the Input Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #7 on: October 02, 2014, 02:54:59 PM »
Thanks for everyone's input.  That's my 225" Spitzer that came apart Sunday.  Ricardo's been trying to get me to join this forum, so your helpful advice has gotten me to sign up.

First, let me introduce myself.  I've been drag racing over 30 years.  Started off with a 14 second '70 GTO that I ran at Martin US131 Dragway near Grand Rapids, my home town.  Sold that car for $850.  I hope it's still around somewhere...

About 27 years ago, I moved to Columbus, IN and found there were a bunch of drag racers at Cummins, where I still work.  I bought a '73 Barracuda from an old buddy that just needed the 440 stuffed in it and all put together.  I ran that car in ET Heavy for several years.  I wanted to go faster, but it was such a nice car, I couldn't bring myself to cut it up to tub it and make a real race car out of it.

Dave Miller knew I was looking for something faster and hooked me up with the guy that had his old '69 Camaro Super Stock car.  It was a rolling chassis, which was perfect for a guy who likes working on engines, but hates fabricating and body work.  It's had a variety of BBC engines and a TH400 over the years.  With the early '70's ladder bar suspension, it's a consistent wheel stander and just looks nice going down the track.  This is the 'Solid Rock' car and most people that have been at Bean Blossom over the past 25 years are pretty familiar with it.  Some people know it as 'Ole yeller'. 

I popped the aluminum head 468 on the Camaro a couple years ago and I'm finally working on the 396 that's going in next.  I've got a 17 year old and I figure toning it down to about 450 hp is just about right...

The problem with the Camaro is that it weighs 3650 lb with me in it and I wanted to go faster.  This RED came up in 2010 turn key and was a deal I couldn't refuse.  The only problem is that Bean Blossom is a terrible place for a fast hard tail car.  The biggest problem, if you've never been there is the dip right after the finish line.  Getting the car from 135+ mph back down to zero before the 2 track dirt road at the end of the track is a great challenge, especially when you have to wait until you come out of the dip to lean into the brakes.  I can only get my car stopped reliably in the left lane, so it's a good thing the fast car gets lane choice...

The first 100' of the track is pretty bumpy.  On videos I can always hear the car chirp the tires 3 times during a run, none of them while shifting.  It was in this bumpy area coming off the burn out that the frame broke.  Combine the bumpy track with the traditional bumpy stop of a hard tail car and it can be really exciting...

The other thing you have to watch for at BCD is the return road.  There are two places that will shake you teeth out if you take them too fast and I often do.  So I'm pretty sure that has at least as much to do with the failure as my lack of supporting the car in the trailer. 

By the way, I love Brown Country Dragway.  Great bunch of racers out there and Sandy and Billy do a great job with the track.  It's just not the best place to try to run a hard tail car every week.  Besides, there's rarely a Super Pro (delay box) class out there anymore, so that's why I'm getting Ole Yeller back together.


Offline Solid Rock

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #8 on: October 02, 2014, 03:00:59 PM »
Back to fixing the car...

Yes, the tubes are open from the front.  The nose section can be unbolted, leaving the tubes wide open.

I need to jack the car up to see how badly the top bars are bent.

My concern about just sleeving the area where it broke is whether it will just break somewhere else next?  Hasn't most of the bottom tube seen the same stress?  Will the chassis cert with a sleeve on the tube?  The cert just expired a year or two ago.

Does anyone want to take on this job?  I'd rather not move the car more than about 100 miles from Columbus, though.

dreracecar

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2014, 03:24:14 PM »
SFI cert only concerns drivers area in cases like this so the repair has no input.If you can jack up the frame behind the break and the lower tubes come together, you are fine. With that style chassie build, constant survey of that area before and after a race is a must.

Offline ricardo1967

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #10 on: October 02, 2014, 03:24:58 PM »
Hey Pete, welcome to the Front Engine Dragsters Forum! It's a privilege having you here. A bunch of friendly and knowledgeable drag racers.

Hi Guys, thanks a lot for all the input, much appreciated.

I was actually hoping you guys would say this would cost thousands of $'s, so it would be easier to convince my friend to start looking for a FED instead  ;)

As a starter, I'm convincing him to join this selected forum.

I got the first part done, now I need the forum help with the second part;D ;D ;D

PS.: Just love your Camaro. It would make a great avatar.

Offline retroboy

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2014, 01:35:34 AM »
Question for Keith. Given where this is broken by the welded uprights and I assume it's a Chrome Molly chassis is that likely to be caused at least  in part by hydrogen embrittlement when welding? We never gave chassis support 2 seconds thought back in the old days with locked up torsion bar front ends on our goat track Aussie roads in the 1970's & '80's.
Cheers
Tony

Offline Totally T

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2014, 03:40:08 AM »
Welcome aboard.

We have ran there off and on for years. I can remember going there in the late 80's and it hasn't changed a bit.

Need to address why it broke...do you run a bladder under it while transporting?


if this will work....heres my old digger running a index race there years ago. Semi final win here but went down in the finals on a break out pass.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1654389683746&set=vb.1357194289&type=3
Troy Wilson
Nostalgia Drag Racing League

Offline rooman

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Re: My friend's RED got front-halved, on the track!
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2014, 04:54:14 AM »
Question for Keith. Given where this is broken by the welded uprights and I assume it's a Chrome Molly chassis is that likely to be caused at least  in part by hydrogen embrittlement when welding? We never gave chassis support 2 seconds thought back in the old days with locked up torsion bar front ends on our goat track Aussie roads in the 1970's & '80's.
Cheers
Tony

Probably not hydrogen embrittlement but maybe a weld that was a little too hot. One of my friends had the entire front end fall off his A/D when it broke at the point where the front wishbones were welded on. It was a lightweight car with "O too thin" tubing but the principle is the same. Even though the front end does not carry much weight there is plenty of leverage factor with it being so far out and when the car starts to bounce (on the track or in the trailer) the load gets magnified.

Roo
Yeah, I am from the south--any further south and I would have been a bloody penguin.