New Knuckle Narrowing?

[woodcox]

These are new hot racing tubes and knuckles for clodbusting megadeath fun. Inside are thundertech racing/ mip axles. A wide birth of 12 1/2” to the out side of some wraith ripsaw take offs for now. I think it is possible to narrow these knuckles down to a more practical length.

There are two bearings in there spaced about 10mm apart. I colored in black about where the inner bearing is located. I would think cutting on the “dotted” line and ditching the outer bearing would be doable. One bearing enough to work with a 2.2” wheel set up? I would leave a couple mm of meat behind the inner bearing to be the end of the knuckle. The hub hex can be located inward to the partially exposed bearing. Thoughts if y’all are with me so far?

This will include cutting the stub shaft to length. Tapping new threads deeper for the wheel bolt. Hopefully doable before cutting using existing threads to guide the tap. Also, drilling new holes for the hex pins. Quick guestimates suggest narrowing my track width 5/8” with this hack.

About the only concern I have is tapping and drilling on these shafts. I haven’t really checked to see how hard they are. Oh, and no more megadeath. Jk. Would be a lil sad to not see the OG clod wheels and tires not fit anymore.

Any comments or suggestions welcome while it festers.


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[Druxus]

If I where to have a guess 1 bearing in the knuckle isn't going to last long. You would want to get a second one in there for sure. Second problem is the mip stuff. I doubt your going to be able to drill a hole in it much less cut some new threads. They do all that stuff and then heat treat it to harden it. You are going to have to get soft again do your work and then heat treat it again.

[woodcox]

Thanks for the reply. I had the same questions. To clarify I won’t be running the 2.6 clod wheels and tires. The wraith wheels and tires are a good half the size. So I’m sure the single bearing will work just fine for crawling little 2.2s. Ar60 for example and most I can think of use one bearing per knuckle.

This morning before work I checked with a file and to my surprise the stubs are workable. I drilled all but through one side of the outer end of the axle in short order. That part would be cut away later. I found the stub shaft to be drilled out in its length already. Bonus. Only half of the stub has been tapped and I don’t see an issue chasing them all the way to the bottoms for the wheel bolt. A good place to start for now. Shafts are hard but still workable it seems.


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[HumboldtEF]

If a single bearing doesn't hold god forbid you could resort to a bushing

[woodcox]

Ha! I’ve got em!

An esploded view of the stuffs. The inner bearing can be seen installed in the bottom of the knuckle.



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[woodcox]

For fun I looked to see if this could be done with the clod’s original knuckles first. A good view with the length of her in some broken D parts.

Hex on. That moved the hex in 14mm. That’s huge!

It looks like I’ll just miss the original hex pin hole when it gets cut down.