Steel Spindle in Al Upright

[ScottW]

Our spindles and uprights are about to be machined but minor design changes can still be made. I was wondering if anyone has had a serious problem with the spindles deforming the hole in a machined aluminum upright over some (relatively short) time, and if so, what dia./depth was the spindle base/upright hole? Any cheap and simple solutions?

[ScottW]

Our spindles and uprights are about to be machined but minor design changes can still be made. I was wondering if anyone has had a serious problem with the spindles deforming the hole in a machined aluminum upright over some (relatively short) time, and if so, what dia./depth was the spindle base/upright hole? Any cheap and simple solutions?

[Steven Taylor]

We have not had problems with aluminum spindles in aluminum or steel uprights, assuming you are using a press fit. Any slop and you will get premature wear.

[Dan Nauts]

Yes, we've had issues with Aluminum deformation in our uprights,... but as Steven eludes to, our problems stem from spindle slop, which is magnified by our high scrub. In addition to the alum deformation, we tend to go through alot of bearings as well, due to the vertical load reversal (by design) and slop.

IMHO, understand your loads intimately and keep on top of your spindle and upright tolerances, both off the machine table, as well as during component lifetime.

[Welfares]

Thats what we've got on our 03 car, and we were still running it up untill April. No problems.

I agree with the above, understand your loads and keep and eye on your tolerances.

[Peter]

We had problems with a steel spindle in alu uprights with the 04 car, but those were due to production tolerances. As said before, make sure the tolerances are correct.

Peter
Delft