Outlaw Anglia - took it racing & lifted the wheels!

[kevins]

It looks like it's been binding on the hole in the bulkead, can you not just open this up and bolt it back where it was?

I wouldn't trust a butt welded steering column even if it was straight, especially if you are planning to add epas.

[blackpopracing]

The shifter on Andy's car is really loose & sloppy and its a guess as to what gear you might have selected. A look under the car reveals the problem, the shifter operates a rod to the gearbox, the only issue is the rod from the shifter exits sideways to a ball joint on the end of the rod (and the rod is loose on the bottom of the shifter), so any movement of the shifter barely moves the rod as the sideways rod just flexes instead.

This ought to be a fairly simple fix by eliminating the sideways exiting rod. You can see the sideways rod here - the fixing to the shifter is obscured by the gearbox in the photo.

[blackpopracing]

Kevins, it was binding on the bulkhead because it was being pulled sideways so much. It's actually clear of everything now.

That rack is absolutely apalling.

[blackpopracing]

Suspension next.

Gosh, where do I even begin? Well, lets start with the springs interfering with the upper wishbones shall we? This is with the suspension on full drop - which is all of 25mm from ride height You can see all of the paint smashed off the spring. Note the upper ball joint angle here......

The springs are quite short as well, with the spring mounts wound a long way up the shocks. Again, note the ball joint angles.

Can anyone identify these balljoints?

So, first job was to re-drill the fixing bolts nearer the joint and mark out the arm for material removal.

And with the metal removed.

Nice?? open ends of tube - bare metal and not capped off. These will be plated over.

That's better, full drop and about 4mm of clearance.

[kevins]

make sure the ball joint isn't over articulating and locking out, they fatigue and crack if this occurs.

[dodgeybrothers]

those welds on the ball joint plates of the a-arms don't look like they are holding on by much.

[blackpopracing]

The springs on Andy's car are 8" 425Lb ones, I had some 10" 350Lb ones spare so I fitted those to see how that might work.

And fitted back on the car - this was not so easy as they don't fit, unless you split the upper balljoint first, fit the coilovers and then reassemble the balljoint with the suspension compressed. That will be why the 8" springs were fitted then...........

Overall this is a far better setup with more travel and spring which will give a better ride, but will require some work to make it practical.

Compared to the unmodified setup on the other side.

Remember those balljoint angles? Yes, they are the limiting factor in the suspension travel, hit any bigger bumps and the balljoints bottom out of angle before the suspension stops moving........

Looks like I will be reworking the upper & lower wishbones as well then.....

It gets better though (well worse really), The shock bushings looked pretty stressed when I took them out (car has only done 100 miles) and I wondered why the spacers at the top were not equal, So....with the 12mm machine screw removed from the lower mounts (which were chewing up the mounts nicely with the threads) and a correct 1/2" shoulder bolt fitted, this is where the shock top mount wants to be (and it's wedged tight against that face too)

And this is the lower mount bolt - which is also massively misaligned. The only way it originally fitted was because the bolts were undersized so the shocks could flop around on them enough to be (mis)aligned.

And that is what I have found in the first 4 hours of working on the car...........

[blackpopracing]

Apr 14, 2024 21:31:47 GMT kevins said:

make sure the ball joint isn't over articulating and locking out, they fatigue and crack if this occurs.

Yep. Exactly that.

[blackpopracing]

Apr 14, 2024 21:37:23 GMT dodgeybrothers said:

those welds on the ball joint plates of the a-arms don't look like they are holding on by much.

Thay are better than the photos show, but the whole lot is coming apart so thay can be fitted with the balljoints in the centre of their travels and the shock mounts aligned properly.

[mk2cossie]

Will you be moving the lower coilover mounting outwards from its current position blackpopracing?
That would make the leverage ratio better for them, if space allows

[blackpopracing]

Probably not - due to the clearance issues with the top ones.

[thebaron]

This really is shoddy. I know that "build" shows are more about the shine that what's underneath but so much of what you've shown so far is plainly dangerous to the operator.

[kevins]

it's got an enourmous scrub radius too, which will make it very sensitive to road surfaces etc. If it has thick wheel spacers it may be worth lengthing the arms and ditching the spacers.

[crockpot]

That's a bit grim Mark.
I know you are on top of this but just a couple of comments.
The rack width is not governed by the steering lock, it's the suspension geometry that sets the width of the rack inner joints (you know that but I thought I'd mention it).
The front suspension appears to be parallel equal length wishbones. Not exactly the cutting edge of suspension design. It does relate back to the rack inner joints dimension though, as in it's the same as the wishbone pivots. I assume that the track rods are in the same plane as the wishbones (assuming the suspension is as it appears).

[blackpopracing]

Hi Kevins, no spacers fitted to wheels.

Paul, I mean the outer rack sleeve is not narrowed enough so it wont let the inner travel enough to turn the wheels a decent amount. I'm not on top of it yet - I really was not planning on building a new suspension so it's a little overwhelming right now as I don't even know if the suspension is actually built correctly

[DarrenW]

This is going to be really interesting to watch unfold... They did a great job with the white 2CV a few years back, I see it quite regularly. I guess this was quite a bit more complicated!

[metalshapes]

Wow...

With all the faults and mistakes you already found, what are the chances that they got the bumpsteer and rollcenters correct.

I'd spend an afternoon checking those.

Which will probably lead to ripping it all out, and starting over...

[metalshapes]

Those open ended A-arms are laughable.

And did they feed the entire weight of the front end into a unsupported flat plate with a bracket for the lower coilover mount?


There are some safety issues here, which is the reason I'm being critical.


But I have no doubt you'll make it right blackpopracing

[jimi]

How much of it is down to the original builder ? since car sos only restored the car (some of it badly from the looks of it) they wouldn't have been responsible for the poor design ? Either way lots of it is very poor 😳

[crockpot]

Apr 15, 2024 8:34:35 GMT metalshapes said:

Wow...

With all the faults and mistakes you already found, what are the chances that they got the bumpsteer and rollcenters correct.

I'd spend an afternoon checking those.

Which will probably lead to ripping it all out, and starting over...

Which is what I was alluding to.