Front Coilover Upgrade - Watch This Space

[GV]

After having a really good talk with Ian from Track V Road I have decided to take my car off the road for the season to design and fabricate a lower arm to accept a coilover shock conversion for my car and do away with the hash job used to deal with the SH failure using the existing Cortina based arrangment. It appears I'm not the only Wedge driver to suffer a deformed suspension upper mount resulting from the puny coilover conversion previously sold on good advice by SH who has now departed from making such items....

Once I have built and tested the new arrangement I will post a full account on here to which I am confident will work - suffice to say I cannot drive my car any longer as though being chased by a load of Arabs riding quicker and more comfortable Camels that I am riding at the moment...

Bye for now...

[wooly350i]

Any chance of posting a picture of these coil over arrangements as I'm not totally sure if mine is original or tampered with,must say it looks original but I've never really studied cool overs,cheers,Wooly.

[Wedg1e]

Apart from the convenience of changing the assembly as a unit, nobody has ever posted a convincing argument in favour of changing from standard. The stresses still go into the chassis and lower arm at the same angles for a start. Lotus used the same arrangement on the Esprit (from a Herald rather than a Cortina but the layout's the same) and there's nothing wrong with the handling of an Esprit.

[anthonysant]

GV said:

After having a really good talk with Ian from Track V Road I have decided to take my car off the road for the season to design and fabricate a lower arm to accept a coilover shock conversion for my car and do away with the hash job used to deal with the SH failure using the existing Cortina based arrangment. It appears I'm not the only Wedge driver to suffer a deformed suspension upper mount resulting from the puny coilover conversion previously sold on good advice by SH who has now departed from making such items....

Once I have built and tested the new arrangement I will post a full account on here to which I am confident will work - suffice to say I cannot drive my car any longer as though being chased by a load of Arabs riding quicker and more comfortable Camels that I am riding at the moment...

Bye for now...

I have heard about the problems of the SH lower arm

You have made a great decision to get Ian to sort it for you

He has transformed the handeling of my SEAC and well worth the expense

[Engineer1949]

Did this get anywhere would be very interested to know.



John

[GV]

Yes it did. The problems I had we're due the useless SH upgrade and GAZ providing a shorter replacement coil over which was totally wrong. Eventually after speaking to their tecnichal director they lengthened the damper and re-valved the setting to a softer ride which has sorted out the oscillating effect I was getting. The rears need sorting now though but that's down to re-valving these will be sent back to GAZ in a month or 2.

[adam quantrill]

So how did this pan out exactly - did you start with the SH kit, then change both the spring and have the shock modded?

Is the bottom withbone modified or is it a total replacement?

Finally is the top mount onto the chassis also modified, strengthened or completely replaced?

[Mr Tank]

adam quantrill said:

Finally is the top mount onto the chassis also modified, strengthened or completely replaced?

Hi Adam

When I saw it a couple of years ago it need the top mounting strengthened as the SH coilover had pushed it up some what. Andy was not amused or impressed with the SH coilover!

Andy

[GV]

adam quantrill said:

So how did this pan out exactly - did you start with the SH kit, then change both the spring and have the shock modded?

Is the bottom withbone modified or is it a total replacement?

Finally is the top mount onto the chassis also modified, strengthened or completely replaced?

How it panned out was that the upper mount was chopped out and new fabricated brackets were welded in. The lower arm was modified to take lower shock mounts that were welded in - a much stronger setup than the SH debacle. The people of GAZ tried to disassociate themselves from then SH kit as there were other Wedge owners who have had the same problems. It took me a while to get GAZ to create the right damper and spring arrangement but we got there in the end!
just need to get the rears adjusted for a bit more comfort.