Midas Cars Forum - www.midascarsforum.com

picked up the uprights on Monday and dry built. quite shiny.

Just thought I'd share my beam axle design for Mk3 convertible. Rough sketch of what I am having made out of Ti as I don't want to be making another one even though I am led to believe there are stacks of metros rusting away in the sunny south. There certainly isn't up north. They've nearly all gone. Even a metro register I read 2 years ago said there were only 26000 A series metros about....and probably less now seeing as they are such a great donor for mini engine upgrades.

Radius arms will be mounted at back of tubular beam, hung off either a square box enclosure or a pair of ears onto adjustable rose joints (one on each side will be 'on car' adjustable, allowing for toe in/out and camber changes.



Beam cant be straight across from mount to mount as I would have liked as exhaust goes over top of beam. Well, it could be, but that would mean making another middle exhaust section. The phrase 'cant be arsed' springs to mind. lol.

I might go for twin gussets instead of single one on top of beam. Will see what happens.

Happy to discuss.

I love autumn/winter. It means I get to do my little projects!

Starting putting together the second front subframe (to replace the one I knicked and put in the daily driver Coupe).

Learning from the last install for the coil-spring conversion I have had a lot more success putting them in this time. Last time I was wrestling round the garden trying to put the springs in with a crow bar and a second friend holding the frame. This time I left a bit more metal on top of the subframe towers. Just enough to keep them square to the knuckle joint and welded the top hats on. All I had to do was give the springs a slight knock with a rubber hammer and a bit of grease and in it went. It will come out easier too as I tried and succeeded in removing it.

Heres the finished article, complete with top arm in place (maybe the cup position for the knuckle in the ti upper arm had something to do with it being easier, I am not sure).

Just got to pump the upper arm up with grease now, then on with the bottom arms/rest of build.

Rose jointed Ti bottom arms:

Looks amazing David. How is the spring locked in place? Can't it jump out now? I seen something in the middle, but can't see what it is.
Cheers, Hans

Hi Hans,

Not sure what you mean?

Do you mean the coil spring? If so, I havent put the bump stop in there yet....which is what the top arm rests against at full droop.

Its retained at the top by a inner ring on the top hat which stops it moving about. Its same as on the Coupe and it works as if it was originally there...albeit it drives nicer now. More in harmony with the rear coil overs. No more crashing and bouncing about like it did on hydrogas.

....Its also retained by the hydrogas sphere cover, which I have not bolted back on yet.

I'll do a picture later this week, once the bottom arms are in place.

Last thing to do is an adjustment mechanism in the front anti rollbar so I can alter the caster. But that can wait till next year. I was going to put a hinge it, but there appears to be enough flex in the bar to not bother.

Those bottom arms look wonderful!!

thank you luckyun. Im hoping they will do the trick.

David, those r some beautiful pieces NOW how bout a CARBON/FIBER front subframe or maybe something from small cro-mo tubing?? jim

Hi Jim,

Well..... you can get a Ti subframe for the minis, but I wont be doing that! I've gone far enough and spent enough .

It would defiantely be possible to make one out of carbon fibre though. I have seen some parts manufactured for BAE which were laid up like this to make a frame.

On a separate note, a fascinting subject I discussed recently was the use of blown Ti to make parts.

A new technique whereby, in the aerospace industry they make a die to suit a required shape, obtain a piece of Ti roughly the size of the shape (only smaller). Bombard the Ti material to make microscopic holes in it, then impregnate this with a gas so that the Ti material has gas inside the microscopic holes of the Ti material, then place it in the die and heat it up to a certain temperature that allows the Ti to flow whilst allowing the gas to expand further.

The result of this is that you 'grow' the Ti material to fit the die (if it goes to plan). Kind of like casting. However this method is more like making a sponge cake in a sponge tin to be honest.

End result is a product with incredible strength and even less weight.