HayWire Racing’s BLOG

Well, we spent a good part of the day working on the #68 Toyota Camry, trying to get everything pulled apart and cleaned up so we can start the rebuilding process. So far, the damage seems to have been from a bearing failure in the pinion shaft. The front bearing at the seal was pretty much absent aside from the shrapnel we found mashedall around the gear set teeth, the rear support bearing was laying in pieces inside the housing and the pinion shaft was actually bent right at the support plate. So the final damage list is as follows -

• Ring & Pinion destroyed due to shrapnel from bearings.
• Driveline destroyed.
• Top Link Mount injured but repairable.
• Top Link injured but repairable.
• Both spring mounts sheared off from housing twisting in the jolt.
• Left rear Shock bent.
• Rear End Housing injured internally but repairable from bearing shrapnel ending up in hub.
• Hubs injured but repairable.
• Panhard Bar Frame Mount destroyed from jolt.
• Panhard Bar injured but repairable.

So that’s a pretty big list and I may have missed a thing or two. Some times you just stop looking for more broken stuff. We ended up pulling the entire housing out of the car. I still have some work to do getting the panhard bar frame mount cut out of the car, we need to build a new one now and get it welded in. The rear end housing is ready to go back in the car, but we need to finish the other work under there before we do that. As for a new gear set and driveline, we will have to order some more stuff and wait on it to arrive before we can get things buttoned up completely.

So the plan right now is to enjoy a nice 4th of July and then get back to work on it for the 5th, which both me and Dad have the day off.

Stay tuned for more news and updates. . .