Folks, I've been looking at my metro manual and the upright looks ideal for us. Add the 4 pot caliper from the MG and I can't help wondering why people haven't used it ???

What am i missing?

the mini upright doesnt have a load bearing joint at the bottom - its the top wishbone that does that - opposite to a locost.

also IIRC the rack fits to a steer arm at the back of the upright which will throw the rack into the engine area.

you cant swap sides with em to correct as the steering will then be reversed.


atb

steve

I am not convinced that some balljoints are made specially weaker for some applications. I have seen a few 'stressed' balljoints, but have never seen one in good condition fail in the massive overloads in an accident.

thats good real life evidence.

I dont think its a matter of being deliberately weak, but I dont think all joints are created equal.

Id like to know I wasnt out on a limb when it comes to my wheel falling off at speed or not

atb

steve

[Edited on 19/11/03 by stephen_gusterson]

You'd have to sort out the PCD to match the rear as well.

Cheers

Chris

Right so my worries are PCD - lets ignore that.

Shock loading point

&

Steering.

Well for the shock loading pont i hear what your saying and I was sort of thinking of using an inboard design i've seen that take the shock load from the top wishbone so thats not an issue. As a side point in Staniforths "High Speed, Low Cost" he doesn't think this is an issue and takes his shock load from the bottom.

As for steering, if i take a metro / mini rack, turn it upside down it will now go the wrong way. I then remove the steering arms and put them infront on of the uprights (they bolt on) and i'm a happy chap.

Have I missed anything????

I'd be inclined to use an escort rack and work some way of fitting different track rod ends to fit the mini, rather than turning the mini one over.

There have been several discussions about swapping sides of rear-steer uprights, but I've never become convinced either way.

Many 7-ish style cars use uprights differently stressed - e.g. the ones that use cut down sierra uprights. However, I'd be a little concerned personally about mini ones - with Sierra's they're designed to fit on a car that's considerably heavier than your locost. I don't know what a mini weighs, but I would imagine that it's not as much as a sierra.

I also heard (but could be wrong) that mini uprights with discs are hens teeth. That could just be over here - we didn't get many mini's over here post 1980.

Cheers,
Greg H

if you turn the steering rack upside down then the pinion thingy will be at the wrong side. would it be shortened at all? and do LHD versions exist?

Perhaps I should come clean a little, this isn't for my locost, its for the project after the locost where the driver sits in the middle hence the lack of worry about the rack.

LHD mini racks do exist + all metro's (not 100's) use the same upright as the mini and .... they all had disk brakes + a lot had vented 4 pot's as well

I've seen plenty of 4 pot AP caliper braked metro's in the local scrappy for what its worth...

anyone post a pic of said upright?

Ned.

Mini and Metro uprights are similar to each other, but use different ball joints. The top and bottom ball joints are identical on either a mini or a metro so I don't see why the loading would be a problem related to moving the load point - plus the cars both effectively have double wishbone suspension anyway.

All later model metros had 4 pot calipers and vented disks, the only ones which are in short supply are the disk brake sets for 10inch wheel minis - they were only fitted to cooper models and early 1275GT's so not many around. You can buy all the components new but cost is around £500 for the full set.

quote:

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Originally posted by MikeR
Right so my worries are PCD - lets ignore that.

---

why, where are you taking me .....?

PCD's can be changed or wheels can be drilled to suit - nah problem guv'nor.

Although the metro brakes sound good on paper are they actually any good in practice?

In the metro / mini world the brakes are seem to be good, you don't read about people swapping the calipers, changing to groved disks maybe.

As for fuel - well by the time i've finished i'm hoping the gov. will allow nuclear powered cars based on the peddle reactor design.......

(mutter mutter, grumble grumble we've got at least 50 years petrol left!)

The brakes are good in Metros. The set up was used in the Metro turbo (with 93bhp) and was one particular area of praise in tests of the car.

A locost (or similar) should weigh less than a metro so they should be plenty good enough.

and now i'll try and write what i was supposed to write at work

nuclear powered cars based on the pebble reactor design .....

mutter mutter working to hard lie lie

that must have been the only thing that was. I had one. They blow gearboxes every 20k and have shyte gearing. Seems like all the later metros also used the turbo vented disks - prior to the 100 rover model.

A metro weighs approx 850 kilo, compared to a modern day polo for example, they weighs 1200 kilo!

quote:

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Originally posted by andyps
The brakes are good in Metros. The set up was used in the Metro turbo (with 93bhp) and was one particular area of praise in tests of the car.

A locost (or similar) should weigh less than a metro so they should be plenty good enough.

---

The metro turbo blew gearboxes because the box was never designed for the amount of power and torque the car produced - the torque was actually restricted to make the box last longer!

I had one too - it always seemed fragile but was good fun!

yep - a 38 hp box on a 93 hp engine.

mine was fun, but it seemed very twitchy at speed and it could go right into the red line in top and keep going!

Apparently its easy to increase the boost from the miserly 4 - 7 psi, but then stuff just blows up even more often.

In a review once, I saw the comment 'dont accept one as a gift'. I bought mine at auction (a C reg) at 7 years old..... I was owner number six! Suspicious that.

Found out it was doing about 70 miles on a pint of oil and engine needed major work. Spent 500 on engine, did 4k on it, and it got hit from behind when parked and written off. Snatched the wreck back from the garage before the ins co could scrap it, and possession bein 9/10 of the law, I got it from ins co for about 120 quid.

Took 4 years reparing body work, and drove it for six months, then sold it about 6 years ago.

basically, the work i did on it was my apprenticeship for building a locost type car.

atb

steve

My modified Metro Turbo never had any gearbox problems and it was pushing nearly 120bhp.
It got through clutch's and transfer gears at a rate of one or other a month though!
Very quick and could show off a 5 turbo, but you could not steer it when on boost.
I swapped the engine out for a non turbo after about 6 months because of repairs.

One of it's best features was the fact you could stop it so quick. It made driving any other car feel like a tank in comparison.

As all later A-series Metros had the vented discs and there are so many about, I am suprised the brakes have not been used more.

A thought on the use of Metro/Mini uprights!
One of the failings of Minis and Metros has been the balljoints. When severely worn they have the reputation of collapsing! Although this should not happen if maintained regularly, maybe it is partly due to the balljoint. Therefore putting shock loading through the lower joint could cause earlier failure! Metros had a slightly better joint than Minis, but were also heavier.
As long as the loads are top fed into upright there should be no good reason why not to use them.
Does this make sense?

Terry


[Edited on 22/11/03 by Spyderman]