coilover advice

[manifold]

you only need half of it

quite neat though. Kind of what I was going to do before I cheated and bought the Watsons kit.

I have to say that I haven't had any problems with them whatsover. No issues with holes in inner wing or anything else.

[wolfie]

Hi lads and lasses. I want to pick your brains as a few of us Midas owners want to change our suspension to coilovers all round and wondered if any of you had done it on your Dominos and if so what weight springs have you used
Any help appreciated
Cheers, Steve

[Alan D.]

Hello All,

Steve (Wolfie) has been enquiring on the Domino section of our forum about converting to coilovers.
Well this is the story so far:

This post was sent to Hans, David and Stuart a couple of weeks ago:

I thought you may be interested as to what we are up to at the moment (We, being Johnny and myself). I’m trying to make my convertible more comfortable, so the idea is to do away with the hydro gas and convert to coilovers,

I designed some brackets some time ago, but the garage has not been a very inviting place to be, as it is still very cold and damp! We’ve had a couple of sessions in the garage and I now feel that the idea is going to work. I know that the “Watsons “springs work very well, but what I don’t like, is attaching the shock absorber to the underside of the fibreglass wing. Hence the idea of directing all of the forces into the subframe.
These brackets seem to miss all of the fibreglass bodywork and you will note that we have drawn the position of the driver’s side engine mount on the subframe and I think we may miss that with the brackets. The only thing we may have to re-route is some brake pipes.

It’s early days at the moment and the brackets will need a lot more bracing etc.. But the next move is to try it in a car. You will see the German LHD car on some of the pictures further down the yard. The plan being to remove its front subframe and use this car as a test bed! I also think that we can use a standard 13 inch coilover (330mm). This means that coilovers should be normal and not custom prices!! The coilover and top arm, in the picture is from a MG TF, but I think we may use a double eye (double bolt 12mm dia.) rather than a stem top coilover.

We’ve looked at using MG TF tower tops, it may work, but will require the underside of the wings chopping out, as the TF subframe is 40mm wider than the A-series subframe, so didn’t want to do alterations to the bodywork and if the idea is to be made available to others, I don’t think people will want to cut their bodywork. There is still a long way to go!!

A little update from when I first wrote the above post to David, Hans etc... I was going to tack weld the brackets onto the subframe in order to try it into the car, but found I was out of Argon gas for the TIG welder. The position at the moment is; subframe removed from the car and I now have gas, (thanks on both counts to the assistance of Johnny) so hopefully will tack weld the brackets to the subframe ready for a trial fit, maybe next week! I've ordered coilovers from Protech, but have put the order on hold, as the bottom bushing is a little more complicated on the TF top arm than I thought! There is actually is revolving bearing bush type thing in the bottom fitting! This is being given further thought and I am consulting Protech. I have also obtained extra bracing brackets, which had to be cut and folded @ 90degrees elsewhere. Remember I'm just doing this in a home garage, so we don't have metal shop fabricating facilities, so it may look a bit amateurish to the more experienced engineers amongst us!!

Click on the link. Then click on slide show or individual pictures.

https://picasaweb.google.com/alandonowh ... directlink





Regards Alan

[Stuart]

I look forward to seeing the photos Alan, a little bird tells me you've made more progress on this.

It should draw quite a crowd at Stoneleigh

[Stuart]

Looking good Alan

[Alan D.]

Looking good Alan

So it all seems to be working, there is lots of room, the coilovers are inclined at about 30degrees from the vertical and it looks OK to me, does anyone have any constructive comments? The only items I think that will be need to be relocated are brake pipes!

Alan

[wolfie]

Looking very good there and very promising

[manifold]

A1 Top of the class Alan and Johnny!

[Hans Efde]

Because the shocks are leaning inwards, I think you have to compensate for the inward forces. I am not sure these side slabs can take the load. Maybe a square piece of tube that goes from the top of the turret in say a 45degr angle towards the subframe. It would be nice to have a bar from left to the right turret, but I think that won't be possible.
Gordon Murray had a torsion beam mounted between the top mounting points of his front shock absorbers, but obviously he didn't have the trouble anymore of an engine that had to be fitted in between. Check out the pics of his mid engined bronze on the interweb.
For the rest thumbs up for you Alan.
Cheers, Hans

[Alan D.]

Because the shocks are leaning inwards, I think you have to compensate for the inward forces. I am not sure these side slabs can take the load. Maybe a square piece of tube that goes from the top of the turret in say a 45degr angle towards the subframe. It would be nice to have a bar from left to the right turret, but I think that won't be possible.
Gordon Murray had a torsion beam mounted between the top mounting points of his front shock absorbers, but obviously he didn't have the trouble anymore of an engine that had to be fitted in between. Check out the pics of his mid engined bronze on the interweb.
For the rest thumbs up for you Alan.
Cheers, Hans

Don't worry Hans, there is a lot more bracing to fit! I have thought about a side to side (boy racer) strut brace, but the carb. and manifold may be a problem, before we go any further I'm going to try an MG TF turreted front subframe in to see how it looks. I'm encouraged by how much room there appears to be!

The diagonal brace from the top of the tower down to the subframe is a good idea.

Alan