Topic

Having found out the hard way that the rear upper damper mounts can fail when stiffer dampers are fitted. Does anyone have experience with a fix for this.

Murray Arundell
Brisbane Australia

There was a discussion about this not long ago and the suggestion was that seam welding the turret would help prevent this happening.

The thread was THIS ONE .

I assume this is on an F, so slightly different solution needed. my offside rear mount had started to crack away so I got a plate welded onto the top mount. I'll go and find the thread.

Here it is.

I went a bit OTT with my solution

Seam welded around both the inside and the outside of the bracket (its only spot welded at the factory) then welded in a gusset... then joined the two mounts together with a welded in steel tube.. as the cup cars had fitted.

No real issue for any compotent welder/fabricator

Allan, I think we expected nothing less but as John would say didn't you forget to mention the Titanium strut brace lattice linking the turrets.

TB

Many thanks to all who replied..... you've all given me much to think about. We've decided to remove the engine so that we can do this job properly and refinish the engine bay nicely once we're done. Am also interested in the strut brace. Is there a drawing or photo of this? Given the goat tracks that masquerade as sealed roads out here I want to make the repair as strong as possible. Use the F mostly for touring which means we get off the main highways and on to country back roads a lot.....

Cheers - Murray

Can I suggest... Not that I know anything..

Seam weld the entire engine bay whilst the engine/subframe is out

I seam welded every edge of the rear mounts.. Then welded in some heavy duty 1/2" box to stiffen the sides up (make sure the shock pin still fits)

Then bent up on 1/2" tube 3.2mm wall thickness.. And welded it between the two.. And welded it too the under edge of the body

The CUP cars were done in a similar fashion

David..

A question. Did you have your craplex suspension fitted when the crack happened?

Oh Yes! I think the problem (another problem with Suplex, surely not!) is that the crap dampers have an internal bump stop and the car rides on this bump stop so you have no compression whatsoever.
Take the damper off and have a look. It's a fecking joke!

Yeah I have the damper off. It's quite frankly rubbish. I have some nice GAZ dampers to fit in their place, once I have had the damage welded up and a new plate put in to strengthen it.

You're quite right, the car does hit a bump stop (and I suspect you could be right with it being in the dampers) and that extra force is pushed up through the top mount.

Interestingly enough they're about to sell a Trophy kit (or so they say) which will have (wait for it) adjustable dampers.