Our team purchased one of the many used Howe ASA cars that had been raced down in Florida a few years ago. It had already been converted from roundy round to both way action. Overall, the car was in good shape, had a few leaks, but could be made race ready for much less money than a new one. During the intial inspection of the underside, we noticed a loose 3/4" bolt, where transmission bolted up to the aluminum (standard issue) Quartermaster clutch housing. As it turned out, three of the bolts were stripped out. It would take a lot more that a strong arm to destroy the threads on one of these bolts, so we suspected that there were other issues at play here. A plan was implemented to develop a "root cause analysis" investgation. In words, we decided to try and figure out what was really going on. There is a lot of vibration going on at full speed with one of these cars, so we fabbed up a simple support bracket, for the back part of the transmission. A "used" transmission bracket from a NASCAR team was found for sale on the internet, and we tacked together the rest with our wender, laying underneath the car. Simple, effective, cheap, and we still have our transmission, in the vehicle, and not somewhere else. The bolt on brackets that attached to the car frame are Allstar units, and come "ready made" with mounting holes drilled and tapped in them, from the good folks over in Coloma. From there, it was just a matter of stitching everything together. Helicoils were sunk in at all four corners of the clutch housing, and the box of gears was once again ready fer beating.
We talk cars, especially GT-2, GTA, TA-2. If you have a question, feel free to give us a call. Our garage is always open, even if we can't get to the phone. Stop by over on the new cyber highway at:
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