Should I lubricate or paint wheel well?

[tpayneful]

In years past I have not painted the wheel wells but covered them in graphite. I got Maximum Velocity speed secrets and it mentioned painting the wheel well with nail polish. Should I:

1. Leave the wheel well unpainted and coat with graphite

or

2. Paint the wheel wells with lacquer paint and a coat of clear

or

3. Coat the wheel wells with clear nail polish

[Murph]

When we started BSA Cub Scout Racing, we did not paint the area where the axle hole is located. Now, we just insert an axle into the hole before painting and the scout just starts spray painting!

After the paint dries, pull-out the axles (don't use these axles for the final race car), just smooth the area with fine grit sand paper. You can rub a little graphite in the area afterward.

Hopefully, you can keep the inner wheel hub from hitting the body as much as possible. You want to keep the outer wheel hub out on the nail head.

Derby Worx has these tools available if you need to bend your axles to keep the wheels out on the nail head.

The red car, closer to the camera, has paint close to the axle holes. The yellow car is one of my earlier Pro Cars that did not have paint around the axle head.

Hope this helps!
Murph

[PinewoodPerformance]

Rail Rider set up for sure and dont worry about the painted area.

[tpayneful]

The last three years I had left the wheel well unpainted and applied graphite like it suggests in the "Pinewood Derby Speed Secrets" book. Year 1 we did a straight alignment and placed 2nd. Year 2 one car had a straight alignment and car 2 had a drift. Straight aligned car won 1st place. Built two rail riders last year and both wobbled badly down the track. Both in top 10 but no winners. I was polishing the whole wheel each time. Wonder if the polishing caused the wobbling. The COM was 1" in front of the back axle each time. I am worried that I might build another wobbler if I try to make a rail rider.

[Murph]

OK, we can help eliminate the wobble!

First, make sure your rear wheels are staying out on axle head when car is moved forward on a slight incline.

If one of the wheels does not move out toward the axle head you will have to resolve this issue.

If you rear axle/wheels are in alignment:
First, make sure you have enough drift set on your front Dominant Axle/Wheel.

On wood tracks that are rough, we use about 6-7"drift/ 4 feet on a wooden board on a slight incline.
On a good aluminum track, we use about 4 to 5" drift/4 feet on a wooden board on a slight incline.

If you still have wobble, after increasing drift, you have alignment problems on your rear axles and/or axle holes.

Let us know if you need any more help. We will be glad to help!
Murph
SLT

[*5 J's*]

I suspect you can correct the wobble following the advice Murph gave you - but if you still have issues and need to identify and offending axle you can follow Stan Pope's procedure for aligning rear axles.

As to the original questions - we just use clear coat and polish the axle area with really fine sand paper. I reccomend 3M polishing papers.

[5KidsRacing]

Dec 24, 2011 7:39:25 GMT -6 *5 J's* said:

I suspect you can correct the wobble following the advice Murph gave you - but if you still have issues and need to identify and offending axle you can follow Stan Pope's procedure for aligning rear axles.

As to the original questions - we just use clear coat and polish the axle area with really fine sand paper. I recommend 3M polishing papers.

I bought 5 sets of those polishing papers last weekend. I am putting on a scout workshop in a couple weeks and I cut them all into strips and separated them last night.

tpayneful, I would leave the area unpainted, sand them smooth and then rub graphite into them. If you get your railriding technique down correctly, the rears shouldn't touch anyway. You will just have to concentrate on the front.