Armortek

I made a mistake...

When I was putting the axles into the arms the other night I was having trouble getting them to thread in because they are so tight. I put bicycle grease on the threads of 50% of them. I was partly panicked because when I de greased them with Simple green I diluted it with water and they turned rusty so I tried to wipe the rust off but I did not get it out of the threads. So put them together rusty, some with grease and some with glue. After a couple of days it dawned on me that this could be a big problem. The rust and the grease. Coming loose and rusting is just a horrible combination. So today I picked up a small vice and with a lot of elbow grease took them apart. Well the the greased ones came apart easily which was scary. So I discovered that vinegar will remove the light rust now and a wire brush can remove the glue. So I’ll put them back together correctly and sand down the axles that got scraped in the vice.

Sorry to hear of your problems with the suspension arms. I think I had a similar situation also. I screwed them in with the help of a vice. I used fibre soft jaws so that I do not damage the part in the vice. Something similar to this:
https://www.chronos.ltd.uk/acatalog/Fib ... Jaws1.html

When sanding to remove those burrs from the axles be careful not to overdo it. Just enough so that the bearing slips in on the axle.

Vince

Finally put these together correctly...

Hi Brian
I bought a metric tap and chased the threads before assembly. Its important to get threads of swing arms clean before assembly - they have vibratory dust and chips inside which can really cause the axle to seize (preventing full assembly) if not cleaned. I machined a small wrench flat on my axles to help get them tight, but soft jaws in a vice should suffice. Lastly I recommend a thread locker on the main thread - Loctite 232 (blue) for example. It looks like the new design arms have a set screw to keep the axle snug as well once tightened. Do not use grease on the threads - they will work loose.
Best regards,
Bob

Weekend project is to assemble some more wheels.

Getting the beast square was too easy. The only problem I have is sweaty hands! Need to try some gloves now.

Halfway through assembling the sprockets but the recomended screws for the backside ring of teeth are too short. I’ll have to make the ring a bit thinner to use the 2.5x8 screws protrude far enough to thread the nuts on