by gascarnut » Wed Jul 20, 2016 5:07 pm
I alerted Rick Bennardo of R-Geo to this thread this morning, hopefully he will join up and provide details on how to get his brackets, as his eBay store does not list them at the moment. He makes brackets in two widths, 3/4" and 1", with or without a hypoid offset, and either for axle tubes or for direct bushing mountings. They are made from .050 brass so they are strong, although perhaps a little heavy for a 1/32 car. Their prime usage is in 1/24 scale retro cars.
Munter, there are IMO two reasons for using axle tubes:
1: Many home made brackets are not perfectly square or straight, soi the Axle tube set up the way Harry describes provides guaranteed alignment of the bushings.
2: The closer the bushings are to the wheels, the less chatter develops in the car as the bushings wear. This is not as critical with Oilites as it is with ball bearings, but still a consideration.
Finally, remember that the JK F1 bracket has about .055" of hypoid offset, which is more than is molded into the offset Slot.it gears. They have about .040" of offset (1 mm). In 1/24 scale, we run straight-cut Parma 48DP crown gears and an angled steel pinion and it all works fine, but those gears are bigger and heavier than the Slot.it or other 1/32 scale gears. Not that they cannot be used of course, but often the big offset will mean that the rear tires have to be much bigger than necessary in 1/32 to get a desired clearance.
Dennis