Counterfeit Thackeray Washers
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 5:17 pm
Broke another upper Thackeray spring washer the other day on the Weber DCOEs and went in to my spares and happened to notice I've got two different types. One of those is of very poor quality and can cause you grief like it has already for me. The good quality one is plated for corrosion protection, the end faces are parallel to each other for 7/8 of a full turn and the center winding has an offset kink just adjacient to each winding's end in diagonal transition area so the spring can collapse fully and not bind up. The poor quality one has no plating, the end faces are skew by an estimated average of about 15 degrees and less then half a turn on each face is anyway near parallel and the center winding has no kinks to allow the spring to fully collapse without binding up. In fact if they are installed to the normal preload they are binding in the diagonal transition area. This will just cause higher stresses in the spring and they will fail at a faster rate. Doesn't much help dampen the vibrations transmitted to the carbies either.
The crummy springs could be saved if both ends were ground back by about an 1/8" but don't remove the temper. Suggest you mount the top ones with the center winding transition facing up so you can see if there is any interferences and the bottom ones down so they can be viewed with a pocket mirror.
Please don't suggest using the really gimmicky rubber replacements grommets. They are about the worst thing you could possibly use to on a Weber. Do I need to explain why? Here's a hint, they cold flow (on the Elan actually hot flow) and have very poor what's called compression set and never stop doing it until they are extruded. They totally suck.
-Keith
p.s. Just found discovered the good ones have a problem also on about half the springs tested. Their wire ends ends foul the center transition diagonal area also just not as quickly as the junk ones and the spring will not collapse to be fully closed. I'm grinding mine back right now. What a pain! Please let me know if you've got a source for top quality ones.
The crummy springs could be saved if both ends were ground back by about an 1/8" but don't remove the temper. Suggest you mount the top ones with the center winding transition facing up so you can see if there is any interferences and the bottom ones down so they can be viewed with a pocket mirror.
Please don't suggest using the really gimmicky rubber replacements grommets. They are about the worst thing you could possibly use to on a Weber. Do I need to explain why? Here's a hint, they cold flow (on the Elan actually hot flow) and have very poor what's called compression set and never stop doing it until they are extruded. They totally suck.
-Keith
p.s. Just found discovered the good ones have a problem also on about half the springs tested. Their wire ends ends foul the center transition diagonal area also just not as quickly as the junk ones and the spring will not collapse to be fully closed. I'm grinding mine back right now. What a pain! Please let me know if you've got a source for top quality ones.