This is a repair thread. I had a wipeout on my first build a few months back. It was ugly. Ambulance ride to a weekend in the ICU. I just finished paying the medical bills, $12,000 out of pocket, on top of what my insurance paid.
Why am I boring you with this story? Because I made three mistakes in my build that caused my crash. This is my confession.
The accident went down like this. We (wife trailing on fast kickscooter) were on a busy street just past a big intersection with train tracks. Always lots of debris in the bike lane. I hit something, my wife said what looked like a piece of chrome trim from an auto went flying up in the air. I was at cruising speed 25-27 mph. The last thing I remember is wondering why my skateboard was suddenly turning. The next thing I remember is the emergency room so I don’t know if it hurt.
When I checked out my board after I found out why it suddenly turned. The entire front truck got knocked catawompus.
I had put at least 1000 miles on this board without any problems. But I knew in my heart it was my fault all the way. The Subsonic Century 40 deck has a very deep drop. I had used two 1/2" urethane risers stacked to get the ground clearance I needed. I never felt great about that because I was worried the long bolts, the stacked riser, and the trucks could all shift. That was exactly what happened.
Mistake 1 - stacked risers.
Here I could see each riser and the truck slipped a little to the side to allow the misalignment. I wasn’t done making mistakes though.
Mistake 2 - long stainless steel bolts. I knew I should have ordered alloy steel but I thought with four number 10 bolts and enough preload I would be okay. No. Don’t believe it. This is how much the long stainless steel bolts bent.
Mistake 3 - I did not use anything to stabilize the bolt heads. Just the bolt head and washer could dig into the wood deck and rotate.
So. I have learned a lesson. Even though it is not a drop thru deck I added @3DServisas X-braces to stabilize the bolt heads. I replaced the stainless bolts with black oxide alloy steel bolts. I first replaced the stacked risers with a single piece injected riser that @257 was kind enough to send to me.
Thanks @257. That got me back up and riding again the past few weeks. I was still waiting on aluminum risers to be really safe. @surfnacho machined me a set. They are made in two halves. In one half the holes are tapped so the bolts that hold the truck hold the riser very tight in position - no slipping possible. The two halves are bolted together at counterbored holes. The counterbore could have been a touch deeper - even button head fasteners were a little bit proud. So I ground down the bolt heads before installing.
I reassembled everything yesterday. Great work by @3DServisas and @surfnacho for everything to line up through that big stack.
I dropped a new set of @RipTideSports bushings in the trucks while I was replacing the risers. Yes, I did the repair on both front and rear trucks. Went for a ride this morning. It felt great. Thanks to all who helped.
