{"id":3824,"date":"2018-01-11T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T09:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineernewsnetwork.com\/blog\/?p=3824"},"modified":"2018-01-10T16:58:27","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T16:58:27","slug":"may-the-force-of-the-spring-be-with-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineernewsnetwork.com\/blog\/may-the-force-of-the-spring-be-with-you\/","title":{"rendered":"May the force of the spring be with you"},"content":{"rendered":"

The engineers at Jedi Racing Cars Ltd in Wellingborough, UK, had a recurring problem when servicing their customer F1000 single seater racing cars – the half shaft CV pot joint they were using, derived from the original Mini, just wasn’t intended for quick removal and often resulted in breakage of the
\nadjacent casting mounted on the differential.<\/p>\n

Mike West, of Lee Spring<\/a><\/span>, explained: “It was John Corbyn MD at Jedi who came up with the idea of a spring to make it easier to get apart and cut the service time down.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knows the old Mini mechanics inside out so called our customer service team and they asked me to give him a call.”<\/p>\n

“I went to see him and saw the problem first hand, his idea meant they could separate the joint without having to fully dismantle the drive shaft, by using a compression spring to apply a force between the two surfaces without being too strong to push them apart.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we looked at the dimensions they had about 60mm at one end and 25 at the other. I knew putting a standard 25mm compression spring in situ wouldn’t work and would allow too much
\nmovement, especially at speed so I suggested a conical spring would do the job with a dimension of 55mm at the base and 20mm at the top and an overall height of 30mm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spring rate was calculated from using a standard compression spring with a wire diameter of 1.4mm and based on the spec of this we determined what was needed for the conical equivalent.”
\n