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Unread 04-08-2008, 00:30
Alan Ing Alan Ing is offline
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None #0368 (Kika Mana)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
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Re: AM Super Shifters

Interesting.

We used heavily modified AM super shifters this year and overall they worked very well for us. We have been using 60 psi in our shifting cylinders since 2003 including the AM shifters in 2006 and 2007. We never once had a problem with the roll pins, but this year, we had a few.

In Oregon, we sheared our first pin and one of the teams gave us a replacement. We thought it was a fluke or something we did when we modified the AMs. We then broke this other one prior to the eliminations which caused all sorts of excitement as we couldn't get a replacement. We ended up taking a drill bit the same size as the pin, cut it with a dremel and hammered it into the shifting dog. Thats the fun part of regionals, coming up with last minute solutions to put you back in the game. Surprisingly it was a pretty good fit and lasted the rest of the season including IRI.

Prior to Hawaii, I figured that we needed to add spacers into the cylinders to limit the stroke like Cory suggested. Figured they were in all our previous machines so that would probably solve the problem. Wrong....... Heading into the Finals we sheared our other dog roll pin during the first match which prevented us from driving straight as the transmission got stuck in neutral. During the break, we tried to change out the pin, but just could not do it in the time before the 2nd match so we locked it in 2nd gear and hoped for the best. At first it looked okay, but eventually we lost the transmission again and lost the match.

Coincidentally, the finals were against Cory's team 254, 233, and 2454.

I don't believe that it would have made a difference in the outcome of the match as our alliance was just outgunned, but it would have been nice to at least given you guys a good showing. Both our alliance captain (359) and us (368) went into the final match with broken machines. I think 2437 our alliance partner was still functional though.

Anyway, we replaced the broken roll pin with a dowel pin for the Championships and that seemed to solve the problem. I would highly recommend this small modification if you run 60 psi.

Prior to IRI we managed to shear the small roll pin in the shift block but we replaced those and went on to have a great time in IRI.

Well, perhaps the next time, we will do the smart thing and put a secondary regulator on the shifter and change all the roll pins to dowel pins.

I would highly recommend the AMs, our problem could have been due to the weight reduction modifications we did.