A Rough Evening with my 1914 SC-4

[rustyjazz1938]

I'll apologize upfront for the longish post, and for the fact that things have been very busy for me with the day job and other projects so I dropped off for a bit 

 

I'll also add to the start of this post with a statement that although I'm a bit bruised, I'm fine. The fine Studebaker design prevented this from being much worse!

 

On with the show!

 

I was out for an evening shakedown run with my 1914 SC-4. I've put hundreds of miles on this car, and I have always been impressed with how it runs and drives. I needed to make some minor adjustments to timing before I was to take it to a local cars and coffee event here in SE Michigan the next day.

 

I was on relatively quiet roads near my house about to turn around and head home when the tragedy occured. My recollection is hazy, but I was turning on a side road with the intent to turn around to make a 3 point turn and head home and the next I recall was I was furiously trying to steer the car out of the ditch. My next recollection is finding the wheel on the other side of the road. In a daze I figured out something catastrophic had happened... The spindle had snapped. Looking back, I'm certain I had someone watching over me as this could have been so very much worse than it was. ☹️

 

I was able to get assistance from my folks, get the car drug onto a flat bed trailer with a winch and get the car home. Visual inspection of the remains of the spindle show that there was an unseen crack that finally propagated. I'd had the spindles off and cleaned them when I redid the bushings and king pins, a year ago but I do not recall seeing a crack. My key mistake was not having them Magnafluxed, but these are SO MUCH more substantial than spindles I've had experience with on Model Ts (I have never heard of a failure like this before with Model T parts) so I never gave it a thought. In the end, there is no telling when the crack started but the spindle held up for a very long time before failing. The next day, I would have been on much busier paved roads with traffic, so in some aspects a failure on a quiet dirt road was a benefit.

 

I'm posting to share the news and make a request:

 

I'm on the hunt for replacement spindles. Ideally a pair I can check (I need to Magnaflux the other one regardless), and hopefully use.

 

My parts book shows for 1914 and 1915 the passenger cars used part numbers 16103 and 16104 for the passenger cars. With some help from @Stude Light, we found that parts 16101 and 16102 were used through 1918, on Bus/Delivery chassis in '14 and '15, and on all chassis '16-'18. I'd think that parts 16101/2 might be a bit more plentiful, but I'd need to find a set of hubs, and perhaps a complete front axle to match. I can make new bushings and pins (the new ones I made survived quiet well) but the spindles are a bit of a challenge.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Rusty Berg

[Oldtech]

Ouch

[avgwarhawk]

Glad you are ok! 

[chattin]

I’m glad your ok. We found a crack in the Pitman arm when we magnafluxed the spindles and steering parts on an early car I drive a lot. I have seen a few cars with cracks developing in the spindles thru the years. I’m a firm believer in checking all steering parts Jeff