Scuttle Shake

[Alan D.]

Hello All,

Just my tuppence worth, but I think a variation on this theme is the answer!
Alan D.

Sorry not quite worked out how to resize the pictures!

[johnnyfixit]

not bad but where to attach the front to the shell lots of work there I think?? may be we'll find it out at the fibre glass course ??

[Hans Efde]

Okay I've done a few measurements on the stiffness of my Convertible. First of all it went a bit different than anticipated. It turns out that when I jack the car at the back, the other rear wheel becomes airborne before the front wheel gets into the air. I tried to block the front suspension by putting washers under the suspension arm,but this made no difference. I jacked the car two times on the left side and one time on the right side (access is a bit difficult on that side), but every time the whole end of the car got of the ground before something happened at the front. So I stopped jacking when the second rear wheel got of the ground.
On the left side I measured a deflection of 8.3 and 9cm. I.e. when I jacked the rear 17,5cm up (measured just before the rear wheel on the arch), the front had come up 8.5cm (measured at wheel arch just behind the front wheel).
On the right side I got a deflection of 8.3cm, so consistent with the left side.
I suppose when I had a bigger jack, the deflection would have been bigger. But for comparison with other cars I suppose this is a nice benchmark.
I have a GTM car with a thick floor with foam in the middle. I am interested to hear what others get for deflection.
Cheers, Hans

[max midas]

Just a thought, but I was reading the other day that in order to reduce understeer, front wheel drive cars should have an anti-roll system on the rear, and to reduce oversteer rear wheel drive should have one on the front.
If anyone has a rear anti-roll bar fitted, do they experience less scuttle shake as the body will have had to twist less over it's lifetime.

[Alan D.]

Hello Max Midas,

It is interesting, that you have come up with the rear anti roll bar idea, whilst reading the Metro power forums, they seem to love rear ARB's and there opinion is that they improve the handling of the Metro immensely . But as far as I'm aware no one has fitted one to a Mk 3 Midas. When we did the extended stub axle project, there was plenty of space to attach the ARB to the stub axle, but I've not had time to do any further development in the last year. I've moved on to a different idea for the rear subframe, so we will see what this year brings! Whilst talking to our more learned Mk 3 coupe owners, it was their opinion that the Mk 3 does not roll, but maybe rear ARB may improve the already good handling! But in my humble opinion the convertible needs all the help it can get! ( My car is a 20mm thick floor GTM model.)

The Metro ARB is fitted to the rear valance pointing forward to the engine and then attaching to the backplates.This doesn't seem a good option for the Midas as we would have to attach it to the possibly not so strong fiberglass rear valance!

Alan

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