Amen Zak. Can you imagine where we would be today if someone wasn't
inclined to try new ideas? They may not always be successful, but are a
great learning experience if for no other reason.
I'm always conscious of a saying a previous subordinate supervisor, who did
not even graduate from elementary school, but had a tremendous common sense
approach to life's challenges, used to quote to doubting Thomas's: Remember,
we're no longer driving Model A's.
Paul Bartz
From: Zachary Zehnacker [mailto:zakz]
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 1999 11:59 AM
Subject: Re: GMC: Offset Wheels WAS:Legalities of change to 80 mm
calipers
John,
I actually think that this is one case where the lack of data and
information speaks volumes. With 4-5 times overloading, I would expect
failures to happen quickly and reports of the failures spread rapidly
throughout the GMC community. It seems that this hasn't been the case.
Someone has 80,000 miles on the wheels and only had problems because they
did something else that they shouldn't have. Even the person you mentioned
had 5-10,000 miles without failure.
I'm not making any decisions about anything. As I said, I don't really
think the truck rut problem is bad enough to warrant a change. I merely
think it is good that there are people out there having success with these
wheels. I think it is good to have these options/ideas being tested and
explored by members of the GMC community. Without people willing to do
things like this, we would never be able to make our GMCs as good as they
could be. It is the only way we can really know what works and what
doesn't.
The common sense/mechanical side of me wonders just how much of a difference
1-2" offset could make. I've been surprised before though.
Zak
PS - I'm thinking that Timken is only going to rate their bearings according
to what GM requests so their liability is at a minimum. That doesn't mean
that the same bearings could not have been rated much higher if GM had
requested it. It is just a thought, but it could explain why there have not
been rapid failures on the GMCs that have attempted this change. This is
surely not something one could count on, however, because Timken could
always change the design to closer meet the ratings which could cause
problems.
Zak...
The guy I was referring to, posted about 5 months ago and said he had about
5 or 10K miles on the offset wheels and would let us know how it worked out.
Do you really think anyone would be in their right mind making a decision to
try the above based on one or two pieces of 2nd or 3rd hand anecdotal data?
(in the face of engineering calulations of round 500% overload) Or do you
have more data?
I am trying to track down the reference to the exact calculations (thanks
Gene for the pointer to "sister coach" on your site but I turned up nothing.
Is that what you said Sister Coach?)
John 74 Glacier near Washington, DC.
inclined to try new ideas? They may not always be successful, but are a
great learning experience if for no other reason.
I'm always conscious of a saying a previous subordinate supervisor, who did
not even graduate from elementary school, but had a tremendous common sense
approach to life's challenges, used to quote to doubting Thomas's: Remember,
we're no longer driving Model A's.
Paul Bartz
From: Zachary Zehnacker [mailto:zakz]
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 1999 11:59 AM
Subject: Re: GMC: Offset Wheels WAS:Legalities of change to 80 mm
calipers
John,
I actually think that this is one case where the lack of data and
information speaks volumes. With 4-5 times overloading, I would expect
failures to happen quickly and reports of the failures spread rapidly
throughout the GMC community. It seems that this hasn't been the case.
Someone has 80,000 miles on the wheels and only had problems because they
did something else that they shouldn't have. Even the person you mentioned
had 5-10,000 miles without failure.
I'm not making any decisions about anything. As I said, I don't really
think the truck rut problem is bad enough to warrant a change. I merely
think it is good that there are people out there having success with these
wheels. I think it is good to have these options/ideas being tested and
explored by members of the GMC community. Without people willing to do
things like this, we would never be able to make our GMCs as good as they
could be. It is the only way we can really know what works and what
doesn't.
The common sense/mechanical side of me wonders just how much of a difference
1-2" offset could make. I've been surprised before though.
Zak
PS - I'm thinking that Timken is only going to rate their bearings according
to what GM requests so their liability is at a minimum. That doesn't mean
that the same bearings could not have been rated much higher if GM had
requested it. It is just a thought, but it could explain why there have not
been rapid failures on the GMCs that have attempted this change. This is
surely not something one could count on, however, because Timken could
always change the design to closer meet the ratings which could cause
problems.
Zak...
The guy I was referring to, posted about 5 months ago and said he had about
5 or 10K miles on the offset wheels and would let us know how it worked out.
Do you really think anyone would be in their right mind making a decision to
try the above based on one or two pieces of 2nd or 3rd hand anecdotal data?
(in the face of engineering calulations of round 500% overload) Or do you
have more data?
I am trying to track down the reference to the exact calculations (thanks
Gene for the pointer to "sister coach" on your site but I turned up nothing.
Is that what you said Sister Coach?)
John 74 Glacier near Washington, DC.
