Outlaw Anglia - took it racing & lifted the wheels!

[blackpopracing]

Andrew,

It's only about 45mm off, with the current compression of the shocks (they have about 4.5" of travel) they are roughly in the middle. I think the basics are about right - just too high in the car.

Dropping the crossmember would be ideal - but I'm not going down that road, too much work & time neither which are available at this stage.

If I can lower the stub axles to about the place in my crude drawing it should all work quite well. Track width is about right, those wings curve down over the tyres quite a bit.

The shock mounts on the lower wishbones need dropping as the shock is being compressed just to get the stub axle fitted to the wishbones.

Will the Maxi balljoints work for the top mounts as well (I assume they will).

[blackpopracing]

Andrew,

I think you misunderstand my drawings. I plan to mount the balljoints approx 45mm lower in the wishbones - with the wishbones staying at the same level. This moves the stub axle downwards thus raising the car.

The block on the right is the steering arm.

All I'm doing is the reverse of dropped spindles that are used to lower cars - just in a cruder way as the spindle is not altered, just how its mounted in the wishbones.

The datum lines for the wishbone pivots are the chassis fixings - so do remain constant.

[Darkspeed]

Hi Mark,


I am all good with my understanding - if no pivots move nothing moves its as simple as that - you will not levitate the chassis with different wishbones

To raise the car you need to drop the spindle in relation to the lower ball joint - you are not doing that a wishbone is not a pivot its a pivot carrier.

The penny will drop - but not the axle in relation to the chassis Give it time.

[Darkspeed]

I would suggest just getting a cheap single joint and see how it fits top and bottom - having a look about £12 on eBay - but a local factor may be able to match that.



I have not used them in the top of a Cortina stub - I always use the Transit drag link to give camber adjustment. Probably what those had originally.


Also worth measuring up for Caster as the top bone may be better asymmetrical

[kevins]

intersting you have a strut set up on yours, my first thought when I looked at the pics was there's not really enough space for a SLA in there and a strut would work much better!

[Fred W B]

Coincidently the Ford Pop episode of Car SOS was on TV here in SA this evening. Although there are still the problems you describe with the car it's certainly a lot better now than what they started with. The programme shows several shots of the original front suspension on the replacement chassis they sourced and Fuzz mentions they had to change the wishbones but he doesn't explain why they did.

Dropping the wheel spindle as you suggest without changing the inner wishbone pivots will alter the camber gain in roll for the worse. Ideally the lower wishbone effective angle needs to be close to horizontal at ride height, with the top wishbone angling down towards the chassis. Agree with Darkspeed that the crossmember needs to move down relative to the upright.

I say the effective angle to mean the angle of a line drawn through the center of the outer and inner pivot points

[blackpopracing]

Apr 16, 2024 15:44:37 GMT Darkspeed said:

Hi Mark,


I am all good with my understanding - if no pivots move nothing moves its as simple as that - you will not levitate the chassis with different wishbones

To raise the car you need to drop the spindle in relation to the lower ball joint - you are not doing that a wishbone is not a pivot its a pivot carrier.

The penny will drop - but not the axle in relation to the chassis Give it time

.Andrew, this is exactly what I AM proposing doing though.

[blackpopracing]

Kevins,

Yes the struts give you so much more room.

Fred, yes you are right - a lot of the car is really good, it's just temporarily overshadowed by the bad bits. Once sorted it will be great. Again you are correct about the camber gain, but in reality it's not a track car and the suspension travel is only a couple of inches so although not optimal, it will be fine for real life usage.

Thanks for your input from South Africa!

[blackpopracing]

Some good progress tonight, I had a chat with probably the best hot rod suspension builder in the UK tonight - Wayne from 'Odd Rods' (he built my suspension on mine) and he is renowned for his front clips - especially for pops.

Sadly he was contacted by car sos for one of his front clips, but as they wanted it in 24 hours he was unable to supply in such a short time frame which is a bit of a tradegy in retrospect.

Anyway, I'm going over to him tomorrow evening with the whole front suspension and we will set it up on his suspension jig, I have taken all the datum points he asked for from the car and these will be replicated on the table so we can plan it correctly to rectify the problems.

He thinks maybe a a mini rack as they are dead simple to narrow.



So tonight was then spent on some little wins.

I looked over the rear suspension and this was obviously checked over better with yellow markings on every bolt (I assume to mark it was tightened). The rear shocks did have a massive amount of pre load in them with the adjusters wound up rock hard. This would account for the bouncy ride when I drove it - only the tyres were giving the movement.

I unwound them completely and just added a couple of turns of pre load, set the adjusters at 8 clicks and it now has a working rear suspension

It needs a good clean - it's covered in filler dust everywhere!



While under there I found the trans fluid leak Kim had told me about, it has a nice trans cooler fitted over the rear axle, and one of the pipe clips was a bit loose, nipped up and no more leak



Another little job was welding some studs to the back of the throttle pedal plate, so it can fix securely to the mount with no bolts on the front.

While the welder was on I bolted the wheel to the hub and welded the 3 loose studs back on, so another job ticked off.

Lastly, the rearview mirror was bolted to the dash top - a fairly useless position, it's now fixed to the screen top as Andy wanted and has a far better rear view now.

[misterm]

A Mini rack? But that goes behind the front wheels

[blackpopracing]

Apr 16, 2024 22:34:20 GMT misterm said:

A Mini rack? But that goes behind the front wheels

It goes where you put it

I don't know to be honest, all will be revealed tomorrow.

[shandylegs]

Great work Blackpopracing.

I watch car SOS and it was clear what the car meant to the owner (and partner) when completed. I know funds are tight so is there anyway I can send over a few £ to help towards any parts required to get the car over the line?

[blackpopracing]

Darkspeed - ah, the penny dropped this morning when I woke up - I apologise.

I guess I mis-described my potential plan then. What I actually meant was to lower the balljoint in relation to the spring mount - if that makes more sense? This will then raise the car.

But that has got me on another line of thinking - I don't think it would be terribly difficult to make a new lower wishbone mount for the crossmember and to weld those in place. The upper wishbones could then have the angled tubes to meet the top stub axle mount. Not the finest geometry I admit, but for the limited movement this car will have it should be ok.

Like this;

[blackpopracing]

shandylegs That is very kind of you to offer, I'll PM you to discuss.

[crockpot]

Mark, don't drop the lower wishbone chassis end.
Bump will give negative camber, increasing with deflection. The steering rack will need to be repositioned and the roll centres will be in uncharted territory.
Looking at your photos and the SoS walk around, he basically got a different car back

[kevins]

Given it's intended use and limited suspension travel is it really necessary to move the lower arm pivot?

One thing that will make a big differance to the ride on a road car with limited travel is to fit some longer progressive bump stops.

[johnbonnett]

Apr 17, 2024 0:56:19 GMT shandylegs said:

Great work Blackpopracing.

I watch car SOS and it was clear what the car meant to the owner (and partner) when completed. I know funds are tight so is there anyway I can send over a few £ to help towards any parts required to get the car over the line?

Count me in, just a modest amount but if sufficient people chip in with a "Modest amount" it could make all the difference. Not so much crowd funding more Group funding. 

[jimi]

Apr 17, 2024 7:59:25 GMT johnbonnett said:

Apr 17, 2024 0:56:19 GMT shandylegs said:

Great work Blackpopracing.

I watch car SOS and it was clear what the car meant to the owner (and partner) when completed. I know funds are tight so is there anyway I can send over a few £ to help towards any parts required to get the car over the line?

Count me in, just a modest amount but if sufficient people chip in with a "Modest amount" it could make all the difference. Not so much crowd funding more Group funding. 

You can add my name to that list

[misterm]

Apr 16, 2024 22:43:43 GMT blackpopracing said:

Apr 16, 2024 22:34:20 GMT misterm said:

A Mini rack? But that goes behind the front wheels

It goes where you put it

I don't know to be honest, all will be revealed tomorrow.

But it won't go where you steer it if you put it in front of the wheels

Seriously though, thinking about it, a left hand drive Mini rack fitted upside down would probably work if a Mini one is the ideal part.

[kevins]

I'll happily donate a fre £ towards this too.

perhaps worth setting up a just giving or similar?