p2ccolo
|
| posted on 16/4/14 at 06:02 PM |
|
|
Wishbone check
Hi Folks, After reading a recent post on here about someone who had a front wishbone snap, and hearing of it happening to someone else I know, I just
wanted to sanity check with people on here that my wishbones look ok, as in they look like they were original parts from MK and of good build, and not
a complete DIY.
Really don't fancy experience having a wishbone ever snap!
Cheers!
|
|
|
|
|
james h
|
| posted on 16/4/14 at 06:28 PM |
|
|
They look like MK items.
Often wishbones snap because the bushes and crush tubes were assembled incorrectly or have rusted. I found when I first built my car, I pressed the
bushes straight into the wishbones, then had to use a vice to put the crushtubes in. They shouldn't be like that!
MK do not use seamless tube for the ends of the wishbones (or at least they didn't, do they now?). What I had inadvertently done was to push the
bushes into the wishbones, but made them slightly oval by pushing them over the weld on the inside of the tube. This of course made the crush tubes
far harder to put in, and effectively made the whole suspension assembly far far stiffer than it should, putting stresses on the wishbones.
On my rebuild I filed down the excess metal weld on the inside (the weld should be on the part of the tube where it connects to the rest of the
wishbone, so I am led to believe strength is not compromised in any way - makes sense to me anyway). I pushed the bushes in and packed it with grease
for the crushtube to go in. The wishbones now just about fall down under their own weight when put on the car.
Having bounced the front end of the car up and down I can already tell it is going to feel much much better - it seems far more compliant with no
squeaks at all.
[Edited on 16/4/14 by james h]
|
|
|
rusty nuts
|
| posted on 16/4/14 at 06:37 PM |
|
|
Another potential problem with crush tubes is some are too short causing the wishbones to be very hard to rotate about the crush tube. Do a search , I
brought the subject up several years ago
|
|
|
Slimy38
|
| posted on 16/4/14 at 06:58 PM |
|
|
When I was cutting my wishbone tubes, I actually trialled each of them for size. Each tube had a pair of top hats and a crush tube pushed in (with my
thumbs!), then I clamped each one in a u bracket, tightened up so the crush tube locked in place. I found that a couple had been cut maybe a quarter
of a millimetre too wide, and were binding. Eventually I had a set of wishbone tubes that can turn by hand, and that's what I'm using to
make up the wishbones.
I still need to protect against corrosion though, the expansion of those tubes by rust will easily cause them to start binding.
|
|
|
.jpg)
