Discussion
honourablepickle said:
my suspension was not very stiff - i think it suffered from some monkey crashing into the kerb and then winding the one shock up to get the ride height back - as far as i know the v8 has different wishbones to the normal s - is this right ?
That wouldn't help, IIRC the front end on the V8S is the same wishbones but is spaced to give a wider track.
I'm surprised the car went in a straight line. At least you are still here to tell the tale, a major wishbone failure at speed could have been nasty. the wishbone had been bent for years by the look of it - not really dangerous as it's a pretty agricultural job and nice and strong - no split welds etc
on a good note - rang mark at tower view and he actually had a second hand one in his big box of old crap !!!
hooray - i thought this would turn into a right fuss
so new wishbone on it's way along with poly bushes and new ball joins - my faith in the world is now restored
for any one interested he has one new lhs one kicking about if anyone wants one
-perhaps i shouldn't have mentioned that - tempting fate and all that
on a good note - rang mark at tower view and he actually had a second hand one in his big box of old crap !!!
hooray - i thought this would turn into a right fuss
so new wishbone on it's way along with poly bushes and new ball joins - my faith in the world is now restored
for any one interested he has one new lhs one kicking about if anyone wants one
-perhaps i shouldn't have mentioned that - tempting fate and all that
the gazman said:
Interesting, how stiff were they?
I know of a couple of cars with front suspension over 400 lbs/in that have been thumped over rumble strips on a regular basis, which have had the outer ends of the lower wishbone curl up. I haven't seen it happen on cars with a softer roadgoing setup, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I think the damage comes from the high damper loads that occur under sudden impacts, so I guess cheap dampers plus potholes could cause it on any car. I regularly thump the inside wheel over curbs, but rarely the heavily loaded outside wheel. Maybe that plus the very compliant Nitron dampers I am running is why it hasn't happened to mine so far, but it's something I keep an eye out for.
Incidentally, I've only ever hit one pothole really hard and that was one that was filled with water and invisible on a damp road. I hit it good and hard with the outside rear wheel fully loaded up out of the corner and accelerating hard. The impact was so severe I thought the wheel had fallen off. In fact I had buckled the rim very slightly, but apart from that it seemed OK. Two years later the trailing arm on that side suffere a fatigue failure at Hethel. Coincidence?
greenv8s said:
Interesting, how stiff were they?
I know of a couple of cars with front suspension over 400 lbs/in that have been thumped over rumble strips on a regular basis, which have had the outer ends of the lower wishbone curl up. I haven't seen it happen on cars with a softer roadgoing setup, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I think the damage comes from the high damper loads that occur under sudden impacts, so I guess cheap dampers plus potholes could cause it on any car. I regularly thump the inside wheel over curbs, but rarely the heavily loaded outside wheel. Maybe that plus the very compliant Nitron dampers I am running is why it hasn't happened to mine so far, but it's something I keep an eye out for.
Incidentally, I've only ever hit one pothole really hard and that was one that was filled with water and invisible on a damp road. I hit it good and hard with the outside rear wheel fully loaded up out of the corner and accelerating hard. The impact was so severe I thought the wheel had fallen off. In fact I had buckled the rim very slightly, but apart from that it seemed OK. Two years later the trailing arm on that side suffere a fatigue failure at Hethel. Coincidence?
I run 375/400 on most fronts of TVR's but think that running these rates with proper valving seems to give a better ride and less banging and crashing than the old hard valved Billies, whatever the rates of springs.
interesting stuff regarding dampers
the new springs i got from absolutely shocks are 400 lbs the dampers are gaz items which although cheap compared to posher ones are reputed to do the job well
i had gaz dampers on my old lotus which was very hard and despite a good beating worked fine
these wishbones on the v8 look pretty strong but are never going to be the stiffest thing in the world as they are just bits of steel mig'd together - perhaps a good plan for people with really stiff suspension would be to get some decent quality wishbones made up but the cost for lowers in cromoly would be about £1k and then the brackets on the chassis would probably rip off if the wishbone didn't bend
as to your failure - coincidence - i think so - you can really mangle bits of steel before you exceed the youngs modulous of the material - if it cracked on the weld though where the welding made the material a lot harder then quite possibly not just a coincidence - who knows without a testing program and analysis of hundreds of incidents
all good fun this eh ?
the new springs i got from absolutely shocks are 400 lbs the dampers are gaz items which although cheap compared to posher ones are reputed to do the job well
i had gaz dampers on my old lotus which was very hard and despite a good beating worked fine
these wishbones on the v8 look pretty strong but are never going to be the stiffest thing in the world as they are just bits of steel mig'd together - perhaps a good plan for people with really stiff suspension would be to get some decent quality wishbones made up but the cost for lowers in cromoly would be about £1k and then the brackets on the chassis would probably rip off if the wishbone didn't bend
as to your failure - coincidence - i think so - you can really mangle bits of steel before you exceed the youngs modulous of the material - if it cracked on the weld though where the welding made the material a lot harder then quite possibly not just a coincidence - who knows without a testing program and analysis of hundreds of incidents
all good fun this eh ?
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