Front tension arm, as it puts tension on the wishbone holding it at correct angle!!
Adam

I vote it gets renamed gangle pin!

cheers

James

foggyjames wrote:I vote it gets renamed gangle pin!

Seconded....

I've always called it track control arm. Housemate has stuck with 'hammer'.

I'm pretty sure it's what saves the 300 from not handling as badly as most macpherson stuff seems to though I could be wrong, it's not on most FWD stuff from what I can see.

Most FWD stuff has a single-piece wishbone with two mounting points to stop waving about in the breeze. The 300-series approach is the same basic thing, but split into two halves...much the same as a 7/940 - although there's an additional rubber (or poly) bushing between the main wishbone and the track control arm (where it's bolted on a 300).

Interesting question regarding the bushing layout. 850s (etc) use two bushings (similar to the one in the "wishbone" on a 300) in line with each other, while the 300s and 7/900s use a 'kebab' style bushing at about 45 degrees. I've not thought about it in great detail, but my initial impression is that the arrangement on the 3/7/900s is rather more prone to moving in an unhelpful direction (i.e. it's compliant in a direction where comfort is not increased, but geometry is compromised). Whether or not it's by a significant amount, I don't know.

Curiously, 960s (facelift ones, anyway) have a totally different arrangement to both other 7/900s, and to 850s (to which they're much more closely related in terms of suspension hardware than other 7/900s). Check these out...

740 "wishbone":


...and track control arm rod...


...which fit together like so (items 17 & 18)...


850:


Facelift 960:


Fun, eh? Note that 850 lower balljoints are built into the wishbones, and are non-replaceable. Grr!

cheers

James

The 850 is the "sensible" way of doing it, the wishbone can't rotate about the vertical. The fact both my control arm kebab bushes and cotton reel wishbone bush were knackered is the reason my wheel wasn't centred in the arch, there was enough flop there that I did have rotation about the vertical.

The advantage of having the control arm at 45 degrees is you are providing some resistance to the wishbone (well... I guess it's an advantage, not sure why yet, but it certainly does provide a lot of resistance) making the wishbone stay parallel to the ground which as we only have one wishbone is a good thing (twin wishbone exists so you don't get corner induced camber etc)

That 740 style would scare the hell out of me, I know know why they all feel like you might as well have a tiller

Hehe...well 960s are supposed to handle better, and I bet that wishbone design helps. 240s have an arrangement quite like the 850, amusingly...



Corner induced camber is a good thing, surely...hence unequal length wishbones?

cheers

James

I was in a quick thinking mood earlier, and wondering if I was right at all.

*some* corner induced camber is great, but not millions. I'm thinking imp style where the wishbone is basically pivoted on the centre line of the car and the wheels just flap on the ends.

We have the balljoint in a macpherson, so in theory we shouldn't get lots of cambers but the wheel should move in and out reducing track (I think...) I reckon the entire thing needs putting into matlab, with sliders and things.

Well, whats been going on in the world of Fake lately...

Erm, in the grand scheme of things, not a huge amount. Been a bit busy with the world tbh! Firstly there was the Tbricks meet to Santa Pod (which I wrote about here. Since then I've been contemplating what to do about a few rusty bits that appeared a few weeks ago.

Today's photos are sponsered by CameraPhone(tm) I'm afraid. In the grand scheme of things going wrong this week, my digi SLR has been seduced by another man as is getting to go to the 24h at LeMans. So whilst it's lapping up the peak of motorsport greatness, I'm stuck here with a car that yet again seems to be more partial to dissolving than driving. I'm also working silly hours, so updates don't match to days. This is Tuesday day atm.

From the outside, we had

Bit of a hole appeared in the wheelarch

Wing off, lets see what we've got




Now at this point, I've hit everything along the top there with a structural screwdriver and I'm quite happy. Those of you who remember the inner wing fixing saga of Kar (linky here) will remember I've seen much worse, slight happy feeling. As Sven would say, glass half full All that top metal is solid, it's got surface rust but the knotty wire brush and the structural screwdriver can't get through it. This really is some form of miracle and reinforces my view that '89 cars have a significant amount more rustproofing done than '91 cars.

There is one thing that isn't making sense though. That hole inside the wheelarch, it's shape doesn't look right compared to what we are seeing on the top of the arch liner. Time to structural screwdriver the arch liner.


Thought that didn't look the same. Note how you can see daylight though only a part of this. The rest is into the cabin, under the A post. So, I'm guessing now my A post must be rusting out too which tbh would be enough for me to write the car off, I can't afford to have weak A posts with rallying *just* incase. So, might as well find out before I do anywork and attack them with a structural screwdriver.... hard. They seem to be intact

B*llocks.

That means I'll have to fix it then

You all know the score by now. Work out how the hole should be attached. Make the hole neat and back to fresh metal, whilst not taking too much away that you loose important shapes and distances but whilst not mucking about with tiny bits. Get out the cornflake packet and make cardboard shapes (if you can make a car out of cornflake packets you can make one out of metal). Place cardboard onto metal. Cut it out. Hit with hammer until it's bent. Use magic metal glue out of the scary whirring machine to stick new metal to car.

This one is spotted both on the horizontal and vertical flange here, so it's decided to do as a 2 piece-er

It's also directly next to the fusebox and that A pillar kick panel has a load of loom in it I really don't want spatter on. So, a squillion sopping wet t shirts/rags etc are used to cover all the unmoveable and the rest taken out.
First lump seamed in.

Second bit in and plugged onto the main flange on the RHS. From the outside here it was also seamed to this flange as there is the access to do so. Note more wheel arch liner cut away now as that originally was there to hold the shape, but now we can safely remove. Note also the 3mm bar welded in and holding both bits of arch in the right place still

That flange seam welded from the rear, as ever the camera is making the welds look less pretty than they are, loads of penetration can be seen IRL

Outer lump put in, and bar removed again for some proper metal to go in

And the flange is back. Note that the lil slot for the screw retainer had to be refabricated


Here by ends Tuesday.

Now some of you know I had my welder stolen a while back, I've never got round to replacing it. So... this work I *swapped* with a mate for helping with taking an engine out on his car. He agreed to do it after *some* beers, thinking it'd be done in a day. I feel quite bad right now, this wheel arch hasn't been anywhere near started and day 1 is over. I know the other wheel arch is worse looking from the outside. Plus there is one rear wheel arch to do and a bit of boot floor to do. Glass half empty again.

Think I might be in the bad books for a while. Good job this swap was his suggestion and not mine...

I will update with Wed's progress later

Good working dude.
If you were on an hourly rate, youd be able to retire by now.

Keep the updates up!

volvosneverdie wrote:If you were on an hourly rate, youd be able to retire by now.

If I was paying an hourly rate I'd be bankrupt

Luckily I've been over this shell so many times I know where the rot is. Last year when I was doing the jacking points I knew that there was some more rot in the shell, but this time, once these bits are done, I'm pretty certain there is none left. Unless it's been growing in the last 6months

That'll be a good feeling. Hoping to be at this stage by Sat PM. I'm doing everything I can to be at the BKV with this but there is little hope I'll manage to even give it a wash, I've a feeling the paint will be drying down the M40.

Nice work Chris, the fabbing of patches is the hard bit, bloody time consuming and tricky. If it makes you feel better, what I recently uncovered in a similar area of the manta scared me away and I've been hiding from it since.

Rain stopped play at 14:45. Weather forecast seems like it's stuffed for 24hours, so I'm going back to work. Humph.

Chris_C wrote:Rain stopped play

Bloody southerners

I'm not having a welder out swimming in the rain! Water and really scary electrics that go down fat cables can stay happily apart!

Well, if I'm not doing stuff, I can update with yesterday I guess....

Wednesday:

Grind off the welds

Flange (titter). As an aside, how do people manage with camera phones?! Seriously, I want something that understands what focusing is. Bloody thing

Ah, there we go, focus again


Front sill/front box section starting to go here

Front of the car again, behind the bumper

Inside, with less holes


Soo, off round to the other side

Hmm, hang on. That all looks largely there.

Missing an 8 inch section of flange, but thats it

Current Fake


End of Wednesday.

Got a bit more done today, but no pics

Unless something of a miracle happens today, I won't be making it to the BKV First I'll have missed in 5 years

May your autojumble stands be full of green books and cavity covers and may you all take the mick out of Foggy for running out of petrol/not having a working 300/having a super slow FWD daily.

I'm back to the welding... just in case