Topic

Dave,

Will take some when its up on the hoist. Its most disappointing because otherwise its been brilliant. I particularly appreciate the ability to raise the ride height by 25mm or so whenever we venture outback. The roads may be sealed but extra ride height is handy.... Particularly when we went to the Gulf a couple of years ago, and Perth last year.

andrewr

Am in the UK often but no trips scheduled until later in the year and I don't want to have the car off the road that long.... Am going to do some intensive investigation on the reasons for the current failure but (together with another F owner nearby) am going to order a set so if tracking down a cure is not possible I'll have it ready to fit. If we find a simple cure am sure I'll be able off load the kit locally. I'd rather keep the set up we've come up with as its (bolt shearing aside) its been trouble free and brilliant.

Auseff wrote: wrote:

cjj

I am thinking along this line too. In the original design this bolt only carried the shock absorber. In my situation it carries the coil-over shock unit. Knowing the weakness of the upper mount we reinforced it so much it could carry two Fs. The conversion has done 15,000km and the only dramas have been these bolts. After the first breakage we replaced all of them with super high tensile bolts to aircraft specs at about $100.00 (60 quid) a piece.

The only thing I can think of is either run with the current setup and remove the bolts occasionally to see if you can spot where the stress is happening, or ream the hole out and drift a tube in before bolting it. The tube may take some of the stresses and spread them across the bolt but the bolt will take the main load.

I find it interesting that you had no trouble with the coil overs for the first 3 years, them problems started with the bolts breaking.
I am just wondering what may have changed to cause the breakages. As they have been repeated it's not just stress on the bolts as that would have been there before. Could there be wear to the fitting the bolts screw into which would cause some movement?, a change to the shock settings, spring rate or increased play somewhere? Even worn suspension bushings could introduce movement to change the loading on the bolt.

Rich

So. If I get you right, the coilover is still attached by this bolt that holds the standard damper?


If so, I'm not surprised it has failed. It's a long bolt only supported at one end. It's not designed to take the strain of changing from spheres to coilovers.

I would think it needs to be supported on both sides of the damper bottom fixing.

david aiketgate wrote: wrote:

So. If I get you right, the coilover is still attached by this bolt that holds the standard damper?

If so, I'm not surprised it has failed. It's a long bolt only supported at one end. It's not designed to take the strain of changing from spheres to coilovers.

I would think it needs to be supported on both sides of the damper bottom fixing.

After thinking about what CJ was saying about the bolt slowly flexing and weakening, then with david saying support needed and combine with the right torque setting how about this, it would have to be an exact fit on the left were the bolt goes through at the same time it would have to sit tight and flat on the main arm, the downward force on the shocker would then be supported on both sides of the shock, although it wouldn't do as much for upward force




sorry about my use of paint AGAIN but its all I have on this PC, I'm sure you get the idea though

I think it needs some kind of triangulation in order to give it some support.

Dave & Rough Luck,

I am thinking that it needs support on both sides and a bracket along the lines of that in Rough Lucks' diagram. I take the comments about the length of the bolt and the fact that its not supported on both sides, but we had an engineer look into this in the beginning and we used the high tensile bolts after his suggestions. What I am surprised at though is that we got 15,000km out of the driver side but so little on the passenger side. After the first breakage I decided that a complete bolt change would be done ever 10,000km as a precaution....

With it covering 15k then going it must be close working 100% if stresses worked out by the engineer were all ok then it must be something like flexing that would not have calculated

So if you do CJ's idea, and the bracket and a similar bracket to the bottom I'm sure that would be enough

Auseff wrote: wrote:

What I am surprised at though is that we got 15,000km out of the driver side but so little on the passenger side. After the first breakage I decided that a complete bolt change would be done ever 10,000km as a precaution....

The passenger side always gets more stress as the nearside of the road normally has more lumps bumps and debris than the centre.

andrewr wrote: wrote:

I also am very interested in the Suplex kit being marketed by B&G.
As I wil be over in the UK next month I was planning to visit them a have a .closer look.
I am not worried about my turrets as they were ripped out when I put adjustable shocks and PU bushes on some five years ago.
In fact my turrets were reinforced as per the X power racing guide and I think when my F goes to the wreckers the rear turrets will be the only thing that survives.
Will be very interested in your experience if you go down that route and if you can get hold of our September issue of Wheel Spin our club publication you will find the report refered to in above posts.

Andrew, if you PM me with your email address i can send you a pdf of the article written by Roger Parker MGOC last year at the time that SUPLEX were testing prototype units and trying to get a feel from owners if it was practical to go into production as they needed a minimum of 1000 units to keep costs down (250 sets) I also have a contact email address for the chap at Suplex who designed them.

The MGOC are currently selling the kit for £825 Sterling plus VAT at 20% = £990 ~ I assume that you would be VAT exempt if taking them back with you.

B&G are selling the kit for a simmilar price and i assume that the discount for MGCC members is because Ron Gammons is a big contribitor to the club. :cheer:

Auseff, i have a contact email address for the chap in Suplex who designed the kit, might be worth asking him if they have had any problems with their "test bed" F ?