Scottish Elises

Seems I've cracked a toe-link mounting, any ideas what might have caused it? pot-hole?

Also its sitting a lot lower than the other side, can see where the bolt is slightly scuffing the wheel...

Do you guys reckon its the standard uprated part that can be ordered from EliseParts?

ie this one?



Thanks, Paul

photo from the other side...

Those do look very low


I had a look at Daves when it was up on the ramp at Tommys having the toelinks changed and they didnt seem that close

Presumably Dave's car has steel hubs at the rears and so doesn't have the alloy plinths bolted to the bottom of the upright like Paul's?

Paul - chances are it's that you've run out of travel on the spherical bearing ("rose joint") at some point, and so the toe link has then acted like a pry bar against the plinth and cracked it.

Check

(a) that both inner and outer spherical bearings are free to rotate
(b) that the inboard and outboard spherical bearings have been tightened up at 90 degrees to one another (i.e. that when the inboard bearing is in the vertical plane, the outboard bearing is in the horizontal plane).
(c) that the travel of the suspension does not cause the outboard joint to lock (could be at full bump or full droop - full droop is easy to check, jack up and see if the joint turns; full bump is harder to achieve as you won't be able to compress the spring that easily unless you have adjustable platform in which case you could mark existing position, wind the platforms until they are right at the top of the damper body, then lower the car gently off the jack - the damper will run out of travel at some point - you can then check the motion of the toe link - should still be free to swivel - the damper isn't supposed to bottom out in normal operation though, and in reality your practical full bump travel is not going to be as bad as the damper end stops).

Cheers,
Robin

Looking at the second picture it's clear that the bearings are not at 90 degrees to one another in that picture; the bar cannot rotate clockwise as we look at it because the outboard is close to end of travel; meanwhile the bar cannot rotate anti-clockwise because the inboard end is close to the end of it's travel.

Sometimes this happens when people set the toe and use the end of travel of the bearing to hold the bar so that they can lock it off - this is not the right way to do it (two spanners are required instead).

Cheers,
Robin

robin wrote:Presumably Dave's car has steel hubs at the rears and so doesn't have the alloy plinths bolted to the bottom of the upright like Paul's?



Cheers,
Robin

Daves car was in having the toe links changed and Tommy was moaning about the fit of the alloy plinth into the upright, so it must have been the alloy hubs.

I had took some pics but none really show the hub clearly

Whoa! good job you spotted it Paul.

robin wrote:Looking at the second picture it's clear that the bearings are not at 90 degrees to one another in that picture; the bar cannot rotate clockwise as we look at it because the outboard is close to end of travel; meanwhile the bar cannot rotate anti-clockwise because the inboard end is close to the end of it's travel.

Sometimes this happens when people set the toe and use the end of travel of the bearing to hold the bar so that they can lock it off - this is not the right way to do it (two spanners are required instead).

Cheers,
Robin

Not sure where the geo was last done...Ed? maybe after the Nitrons were refurb'd?

DDtB's has the alloy hubs too. Never looked at the car with the wheels still on

THe poor car - it's been loved and tenderly cared for it's whole life, you have it 5 mins and you've broken it already

Ah. Well, the plinths fit where the plinths fit, so I doubt there is any difference between Dave's car and Paul's - cannot see what it would be. The plinth's on the kit fitted to my old shed didn't fit very well either - we had to "ream" out the mounting holes to get it all together. I guess there's a fair amount of tolerance in the machining of the hubs in the first place ...

Cheers,
Robin

What Robin said.

I'd also say I'd not be keen on running a car on the road with completely unprotected rose-joints Paul. As a minimum I'd use a thick bead of RTV around the joints to keep dirt out. It should prolong the life a bit; rose joints IMO should be viewed as consumables to an extent.

I can have a chat at work about possible repair solutions for the plinth. Robin, I thought elise chassis and compoments were supposed to be accurate to within .0020"?

I cracked both of mine in the same place Paul on N1, probably a combination of general abuse, and taking off on the Glenshee road humps.

Geary sold me two new ones for £65.

tut

One thing to point out is that they have been fitted wrong in the first place. The bolts shlould go up from the plinth with the nut on the top of the upright, not the other way round as fitted here. They are running far too close to the wheels.

Before replacing the plinth I would remove and check the upright very thoroughly. With the plinth significantly weakened, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the upright has cracked also.

HTH

Dan

Thanks for all the info, guys. appreciated.

Signs of corrosion on the rose joints, so chances are they may need replacing soon, even if they aren't already seized.
Might just go ahead and order the full kit, plinths and rose joints...Elise parts do wee rubber boots to go over the greased rose joints, so probably worthwhile at £14 a set.

Guess I'll need to get the tracking redone afterwards

LazyD,

Yes, once you replace the toe links you will need to readjust the toe. But you can match the lengths of the originals to the new ones carefully and this will mean that it's more-or-less right which will give you some breathing space until you can organise doing it properly.

Cheers,
Robin