Ack...forgot to lift the 4th wheel...how to correct

[derbster]

We purposely purchased the Pro Body Tool to lift the front wheel. Regretably, while drilling holes, we forgot to use the 3rd hole in the PBT and now have 4 on the floor. How should we correct this? I would think, filling the hole and redrilling just above it might not be strong enough? Should we drill a new hole further back (currently using extended wheel base)? Or use the same hole and shim it or bend the axel up?

[doct1010]

Shim it or bend it. Just be sure it AIN"T touchin!

[PWD_addict]

Just bend the axle and, if possible, shave the wheel down to the smallest possible diameter. I used a 1.0 g wheel on the lifted one last year when we had to have a 4 wheeler for Pack but were allowed 3 wheeler for District (which never happened--long story).

[Gameday]

derbster, I made the same mistake on a car I built for my little guy for the sibling race. I just glued a round toothpick in the hole and re-drilled right above it. The toothpick fit perfectly and you can't even tell it's there.

[TAL]

Shave the wheel and make it smaller than the other three

Bend the axle

Shim the axle

If it's a rail rider throw the 4th wheel in the trunk for more weight in the rear.

[doct1010]

Shave the wheel and make it smaller than the other three

Bend the axle

Shim the axle

If it's a rail rider throw the 4th wheel in the trunk for more weight in the rear.

[GrantnHayden]

We have done the toothpick deal too with fine results. Put masking tape over the hole, poke thru and wipe a little elmers glue in there with the tip of a tpick. Nudge the tape up out of the hole and press the pc of tpick in there below the surface. Wipe and remove the tape.

Sand it if you wish. We did not paint around the axle hole. Rub graphite/hobelube into the exposed wood or paint around the old and new axle holes.

Done.

[pinecarpro]

drill a larger hole fill with bondo then redrill

Pinecar

[derbster]

Thanks folks....since the car isn't painted yet, we'll opt for the toothpick route.

[Gameday]

OK, so now I'll tell the whole story.

After last year's District we put everything away and totally took a break from PWD. We dusted everything off around Christmas and started getting ready for our Pack race, which was just 3 1/2 weeks away.

During our downtime it was as if we forgot everything we knew. For some idiotic reason my boys and I cut slices off the blocks before drilling the axle holes. Then, to make it worse, I came up with the bright idea to just drill the axle hole all the way through the slice from one side to the other.

Upon inspection I discovered that not only was the slice not at a 90 degree angle to the drill bit when we drilled, but the drill bit also flexed while drilling the hole and we ended up with totally unaligned holes. And, oh yeah, we drilled the front holes while forgetting we were going to raise a wheel.

So, we bought some new blocks and started over with much better results. But, I kept looking at that sad little slice with the unaligned holes and decided to try fixing it. I thought about boring the holes out and re-filling with epoxy but then I just decided to use round toothpics instead. And, it worked beautifully. The holes were completely filled in. I cut the ends of the toothpics off close to the body with a razor blade, and then sanded flat. And the structural integrity was great. In fact, the resulting car was entered into the Sibling's race and set a track record: