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Another use for 'Blu Tack'

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robk
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2012/12/24 21:35:02 (permalink)
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Another use for 'Blu Tack'

Do you have ride-height-adjustable coilovers, and are you wondering which areas of your tyres and/or front lip would limit your ride height lowering, due to scrubbing or scraping? All you need is a pack of Blu Tack. 

Note: this idea is not aimed at people with aggressive wheel fitment, who are willing to put up with lots of tyre scrubbing to go extremely low. It is aimed at people who, like me, get excessively annoyed if they hear any unwanted sound coming from any part of their car, including loud tyre scrubbing.

Anyway, here is the idea (someone may have already thought of this, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere)...
All you have to do is put small blobs or strips of Blu Tack around the inside of the wheel arches and/or under the front lip, then go for a drive on the roads where you commonly experience tyre scrubbing or front lip scraping, and periodically stop and check where the Blu Tack has disappeared. You could just check it once at the end of the drive, but if you can stop and check each time you hear an unwanted sound, it will help you to determine the size of the bump in the road that is required to cause scrubbing in particular areas. Many people are willing to tolerate scrubbing or scraping on severe bumps, but not on mild or moderate ones.
Remember to use multiple small sections of Blu Tack rather than big single strips, otherwise it might all come off at once if there is any scrubbing.

When I last tried this, I put multiple blobs of Blu Tack under my front lip, and I made the blobs with varying heights so I could observe how big the blob has to be before it gets removed due to contact with things like speed bumps in my local area. Unfortunately in my case I determined that my own driveway (in a tight underground carpark) was the only thing stopping me from lowering my car any further :-(
I also had multiple strips of Blu Tack around the inside of my rear wheel arches, so I could see where the tyres had ripped the Blu Tack off the wheel arch due to contact, either on speed bumps or hard corners with a rough surface.

I know it's inevitable that tyre scrubbing and front lip scraping will occur on cars that are moderately low or very low, so most people will think this idea is useless, but it can be useful if you want to know exactly how low you can go without exceeding your tyre scrubbing or lip scraping 'annoyance threshold', especially if you encounter the same bumpy roads regularly.

There is an extensive build thread for my car here: http://www.mr2australia.com/mr2play/tm.aspx?m=18316
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    Reddtarga
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    Re:Another use for 'Blu Tack' 2012/12/25 14:44:04 (permalink)
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    That's good thinking to get a positive check on the clearance.
     
    That stuff has more uses that many people think.
    I've used Blu Tack to check clearance under the front trunk when I was making a custom strut tower brace.
    I placed a small blob of it on the spot that I thought would foul, then carefully closed the lid. It squashed up to show the exact clearance.
     
    I have also used it to mount pickups on my acoustic guitar top rather than cut holes to mount them.
    After several years they still haven't moved, lol.
     
    There must be a thousand other uses for it. 

    1990 ADM NA
     
     
     
     
     
     
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