Looked all over for a answer this question, thought I seen something on this before but can not find it. Looking at a roadster and the front axel is a solid drop with hair pins? I have built a few rides with both tube and solid axels, always was told "hair pins on tube, and split bones on solid" and this is what I have done. My question is how does this effect the handling if hair pins are on solid, as this is how a car is done that I'm looking at. Some say it bad and some say it doesn't matter. What do you think!!!
I always thought it was four bar on a tube and hairpins or bones on an I beam from what I had been reading from those who expound theories on such things.
pasadenahotrod, I'm old school and old and was always told "never mix the two" pins on tube and bones on I beam. Mr48chevy, some people say it doesn't make any difference. But!!
Reread Mr48chev's post above. His statement describes the accepted usage of the two most common front axle positioning control designs. Also continue to search for the many previous post on this topic.
The geometry on hairpins and split bones would be the same, wouldn't they? Only difference would be flex and I'd hope neither flexed enough that you could tell it. Geometry on a 4 link is completely different and works better with an axle without any flex (like a tube axle).
When I was a kid, my cousin had hairpins with a dropped Ford axle. His had a plate welded into the opening and large diameter holes in the plate. As far as I can figure it out it would probably be equal to split bones. That was back in the 60's but he owned that car for quite some time before that. He didn't have any issues with it, that I recall. Also they were chrome plated, so they may not have been a home built item?
Actually the general concensus here is no hairpins on a tube axle, but no one has ever backing it up with real world application. Anyway you can run hairpins on either just fine.
The theory is that hairpins can twist the axle if one end of the axle is up and the other end down. An I beam axle is flexible enough to bend but a tubular axle is not. That is the theory, I think there have been tubular axle cars built with hairpins that did not suffer fatigue cracks or failure.
Yeah, over 500 Kurtis Kraft midgets were built with tube axles and hairpins. They ran on some pretty rough dirt tracks and the only axles that broke were the ones that went through a fence! The KK axle and hair pins under the car in my avatar ran at El Mirage, 100's of passes on 1/4 and 1/2 mile drag strips, and thousands of miles on the street. It's still under the car, and it's still in one piece. But what the hell do I know??
Obvious "Deathtraps !!!!!" THE LIST IS ENDLESS !!!!!!............. Save them !.... Don't let them drive these cars !!!....... There all going to DIE !!!!
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