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The Tread Thread

In tiny tread news…

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MildredHubble said:
I was thinking about universal or constant velocity joints too. I think it wasn't until the 1950s when they started to appear on some cars. Until then, they used a sort of rubber donut coupling to allow some play in the rotating shafts. They were even in use until the mid 1970s, I think it was the lotus Elan that used them on the drive shafts which lead to some flaky handling after, well, not many miles at all.
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True constant velocity joints have more moving parts, were difficult to manufacture and would drive the price of a vehicle up back in a time when when low amounts of cash would determine the salability of a vehicle.
The first generation of the Chevrolet Corvair fell victim to the accounting department not allowing the final build to have a very necessary rear anti-sway bar installed over a cost of about $20.
In the end, it cost GM about ten-fold to fix them under recall and after Ralph Nader wrote Unsafe at any speed, it killed off the sales, even after the upgrades were made in 1965 to eliminate the first generation swing axle cars.
 
Incidently, the earlier German VW Beetles were equipped with the same type of rear swing arm axles that weren't as prone to the wheel tucking problems due to the use of rear torsion bar suspension as opposed to the 'vair coil spring setup.
 
Nitro said:
True constant velocity joints have more moving parts, were difficult to manufacture and would drive the price of a vehicle up back in a time when when low amounts of cash would determine the salability of a vehicle.
The first generation of the Chevrolet Corvair fell victim to the accounting department not allowing the final build to have a very necessary rear anti-sway bar installed over a cost of about $20.
In the end, it cost GM about ten-fold to fix them under recall and after Ralph Nader wrote Unsafe at any speed, it killed off the sales, even after the upgrades were made in 1965 to eliminate the first generation swing axle cars.
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My car was just plain awful when the swat bar/anti roll bar snapped! It went from super slick in corners to a lumbering mess.

Apparently Ford made the same mistake with the Escort here in the UK. To cut down costs they designed in a front anti roll bar, then deleted it from the early press cars. That little cost saving measure won it the accolade of "basically un-drivable" from the motoring press. So the component was quickly added back in!
 
Nitro said:
True constant velocity joints have more moving parts, were difficult to manufacture and would drive the price of a vehicle up back in a time when when low amounts of cash would determine the salability of a vehicle.
The first generation of the Chevrolet Corvair fell victim to the accounting department not allowing the final build to have a very necessary rear anti-sway bar installed over a cost of about $20.
In the end, it cost GM about ten-fold to fix them under recall and after Ralph Nader wrote Unsafe at any speed, it killed off the sales, even after the upgrades were made in 1965 to eliminate the first generation swing axle cars.
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My first car was a 1964 Chevy Corvair

It will take me a while to locate it, but somewhere I have the proud owner of it sitting on the hood of it after I crunched it into a tree....at 14 years of age :p
 
Outdated said:
Hard to believe that it's real, it's NASAs new prototype for the first manned mars mission.
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Wow! That does look cool! Let's see Mr Musk come up with an answer to that! :smileycat:

Of course I'm pretty sure the NASA vehicle will actually end up driving around Mars. Whereas Elon Musk will still be promising his equivalent will be available "first quarter next year".
 
Rodafina said:
We are building the tread thread, and it has become a fascinating place.

I’m amazed at how many beautiful images showed up on here. I am smiling too with each new post.
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I did not realize how happy I would be seeing that. I wanted to be there in person and look really closely at everything. It's like heaven for me. The bolt heads on the wheels are my favorite thing. I love the bolts closer to the chassis too. I want to feel the cool metal of the outer wheel plate near my face. I would smell the soil. I would run my fingers over the cast name and feel the edges, pressing them into my finger tips until I heard a sound in my head. I wonder what it would sound like close up too, how the ambient sounds near by would go into the recesses and I would try lifting and moving the tractor plates to see if I could. I could not but I would want to try.

This tractor seems like a really cool friend you could go visit. No one else would want to be in a place like that with no people and just mud and a beautiful tractor but when I was a kid I would feel like the tractor was a friend I would visit. I could pound my palm against a heavy cast part and feel how it would not move or vibrate at all, so strong and heavy. I really liked things like that.

I forgot how much I liked things like the tractor until I saw this photo. Thank you for showing it :)

** edit I was wrong, I looked again, it looks like a crane, not a tractor. I am sorry I made that mistake.
 
I was actually looking for a picture of the treads on the current mars rover, seeing that lifted my brow a bit.
 
Rodafina said:
View attachment 90705
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I guess this may pre date steel radials?

It's interesting that they designed them to "self clean". I guess it makes sense as you can get "directional tyres" for cars that have asymmetric tread patterns and channels to "corkscrew" water away from the wheel and outwards. They also break the surface tension of water so you are less likely to aquaplane in the rain.

Always worth going for directional tyres over symmetrical tyres. I can vouch they make quite a difference!
 
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