Well I nearly ended up with my brake caliper in my lap on Sunday as the two locating bolts disappeared somewhere (sorry Nick at Stretton). I have to admit I had not checked the torque of these two for some time. I checked every other damn nut and bolt, but these two are out of obvious view on my kart and I overlooked them. In my defence however I changed to new pads on the Friday and despite a lot of tugging and levering to get the old pads out there was no sign of looseness.
We did take the kart out for a rattling shakedown around the oval on Saturday and at the same time was braking hard to wear the pads in.
The story does not end there. On Sunday I did hear a clunk and pulled into the pits, the kart was rubbing somewhere and I needed help pushing it. However a first inspection showed that one of the covers on the TAV was loose and wedging the belt. The bolt had come loose, even though I had checked it previously, Bill kindly helped me fix it, I assumed everything was sorted, no rubbing, all seemed fine.
However with hindsight, the clunk would have been the brake caliper coming loose, and I did not look any further than the issue with the TAV.
This thread is generating a lot of discussion about the security of fastenings and rightly so. I still consider myself a newbie and as I progress understand that CycleKarts are not toys. When driven hard they experience a lot of stresses and vibrations.
In my opinion we should be reviewing three areas:
The quality of components; some cheap internet options may not be up to the job.
Quality of the build, suitability of materials, welds and fasteners etc.
Maintenance and self-scrutineering. Having an allocated scrutineer buddy up on the day may help.
I'm glad we are reviewing this now, I don't always appear to take things seriously, but this is important.