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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Front suspension and king pins

Team BBS,

Its been a while since I last posted. But having kindly been lent a kingpin reamer by Bob on the forum - I am going to begin stripping my front suspension down this weekend.

What advice does anyone have? Any special tools I may require?

Anything that is going to prove a pain?

C L Carter

Hi Christian. Only special tools required are brain cells. I'm sure you've got them to spare. :).

Some people seem to have a problem removing the springs. I've always found it easy enough to jack up the car, and lower the wishbone enough to pop the springs out, -- after stripping down the pins of course. Others feel the need to remove the bolts from the w/bones, and lower the springs out of the bottom. Either way is easy.


The most likely problem you'll have is getting the lower fulcrum out of the wishbones -- they might well be rusted to the k/pins and won't turn. If your swapping wishbones too, that won't matter and you can just leave them in for -- "exchange"?

If you have to, because your keeping the wishbones, or just want to remove the lower fulcrum, since you've already got a new pin set including the fulcrum, you can take a hack saw to it. It's hardened but not so hard that you can't cut it. Or you can turn the heat on it and belt it sideways along the king pin to free it -- but that does damage the threads in the bones somwhat :).

I'm assuming though, that you are doing the wishbones too.

What are you using to drift/press the new bushes in?
Lawrence Slater

Lawrence,

Good to hear from you again. Hows the 2nd midget going?

1. I'm not changing the wishbones... I'm hoping to god they are fine and that my rebuild kit will be fine - and a lick of paint will take care of them. (AFAIK, the only reason to change them is if the threaded bush is worn in them? - if this is the case I'll have to buy new ones - hefty price tag though)

2. I will use a hydraulic bearing press to remove and add the bushes.

3. I will be putting in new king pins though... so nothing to stop me grinding one to pieces to get the fulcrum pin out if needed - As long as I can get it all off the car with ease then I'll take the bits along to a workshop I have access too and attack them as appropriate.

- -

I'd quite like to get hold of a spare set of king pin assemblies to rebuild off the car - so that next time I do this its a swap over job... I just missed out on 2 full sets of hubs on ebay for £42... sadly I didn't get home in time to bid on it.

C L Carter

On a side note. One of my dampers is leaking. Is there a rebuild kit available - or is it worth paying the MGOC £20 for a reconditioned exchange? - What are the orange ones, are they firmer sports suspension?

On another side note, has anyone lowered a 1500? Is it worth it - does it cause problems? Does it look better? I'm guessing it is necessary when you remove the weight of a bumper, but not if you keep them?

C
C L Carter

Special tools:

-Big hammer!
-Expanded dictionary of swear words!

Lawrence has actually missed a step. The lower pin is the second annoyance you will encounter. The first will be the weedy little cotter pins rusted in/away or just generally mashed.

But that said, if you do just cut the fulcrum pin out (by cutting it either side of the kingpin) this doesn't really matter.

Yeah the fulcrum pin is hardened (supposedly), but only to that of a good parmeasan instead of just plain cheddar strength.

With mine I actually found that just a new kingpin was sufficient to reduce kingpin play without replacing the bushes. I might have gotten lucky though and ended up with a kingpin on the fat side of the manufacturing tolerance range!

Cheers,
Malcolm
M Le Chevalier

Removing the front suspension....

Ahhh... easy pissey, it shouldnt take more then 20 minutes, the only thing easier is removing door glass or the door handles

LOL

Yeah... I dont envy you at all, your new best friend.is a 4.5 angle grinder and an impact wrench

When was the last time the suspension was a apart and have you kept it well greased

Im a fan of the 2 bolt method

Prop
Prop and the Blackhole Midget

As for your side notes: yes and yes, I have bought the £20 refurb ones and the lowering bits... problem is I haven't got round to screwing everything back together again to test said bits! :-D

Malcolm
M Le Chevalier

Christian,
As Lawrence says, I think the problem you will have is removing the cotter pin and fulcrum pin from the wishbone/kingpin. I have always had to grind the fulcrum pin in half to get the fulcrum pin and kingpin off the wishbone or send the whole wishbone/kingpin assembly off to the wishbone rebuilder.

If there is no play in the wishbone/fulcrum pin I would see how the newly reamed stub axle fits the old kingpin - the wear is usually on the bushes in the stub axle.
I don't suppose that is a good engineering practice!

Don't forget when reassembling to get the correct shims at the top of the stub axle. Too few and the top trunnion will clamp the stub axle and make the steering tight, too few and you will get up and down movement on the stub axle.

Good luck
Dave Brown

Btw...pay very close atten to the haynes manual for removing the springs...

I barely survived the encounter...

Haynes makes no haste in explaining how There extremely dangerous... with all the warnings i had visions. they will tear a mans arm off, murder your children and rape your dog... all before the secound bounce

In my case, the spring did loose contol I look back with horror, not from loosing my arm or watching the spring burn my nieabores house down.

NO... never have I laughed so hard from the shear embarresment that I almost hacked up a lung, from being dribbled on my arm and leaving only a minor grease stain, from this deadly war criminal spring

Yepp... those springs are dangerous alright

Prop
Prop and the Blackhole Midget

Sorry...

But I have to ask...what is the point of the cork washer gasket...anyone use it

I used mine to fit under the lip of my bathroom sink faucet

Prop
Prop and the Blackhole Midget

You will also need to disconnect the swivel hub from the steering arm. Either by unbolting the steering arm itself, or by disconnecting the TRE. The latter can be by backing off the locking nut and unscrewing the track rod out of the TRE, but then you are going to have to get the tracking reset later on. For this reason I prefer to release the TRE taper from the steering arm. Either with a special tool, or the quick way with two large hammers.

Guy W

Christian,
recon dampers is a gamble and think about what £20 could possibly get - take off VAT and allow for transport, labour, fixed and variable overheads and costs

the recon dampers could have a long history and been reconditioned once or more before or worn right down before replacing

the only good LA dampers seem to come from the US

the red painted uprated Midget lever arm dampers are 30% stiffer

Nigel Atkins

Thanks guys... lots of great comments

Prop,
I have spring compressors I can use - takes a while but its nice and safe.

Dave,
My kit came with cork washers... not sure if they came with shims though... what do you shim - I suppose it will become obvious when I take it apart?

C L Carter

Hi Christian

Good luck with the rebuild. The shims go on top of the king pin, underneath the large brass/oilight bush. Usually one is enough. The top trunnion is locked tight on the kingpin with the top nut and the shims allow for adjustment. When the top nut is up tight there should be no vertical movement of the hub on the king pin but the hub remains free to move with perhaps a trace of drag.
Bob Beaumont

Thanks Bob,

So its done by feel by the looks of thing. Tbh, reassembling is next weekends job - the first challenge is strip it to bits.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks
Christian
C L Carter

Refurb dampers: really rubbish
New dampers: just rubbish (so relatively, a "bit better" than refurb).
The ones from the States are reputed to be excellent, but expensive delivery and are part exchange but the return costs are again prohibitive.
GraemeW (Kent!)

What makes USA dampers better? Less exposure to moisture?

Or just better rebuild process?
C L Carter

CL Carter,

I would check the new kingpins in the old bushes and see where the wear is because in my experience the kingpins wear more than the bushes but I should have lubed them more frequently as most of the wear was due to rust damage, IIRC I typically greased them 2 or 3 times a year. The first set of kingpins and bushes I replaced I reamed myself with machine reamers at the local technical college and they were spot on but the second set I checked the new pins in the old bushes and a very nice fit but as I had new bushes I decided to fit them and have a local machine shop with the correct reamer do the job and it ended up with the new bushes being a looser fit the the ones they replaced, I wasn't happy and the end result was it was less than half the time till I had to take remedial action to correct play in the kingpins, IIRC 3 years as compared to 7 years for the ones I did myself.
David Billington

>>What makes USA dampers better? Less exposure to moisture?

Or just better rebuild process?<<

I'm not sure the UK ones are rebuilt, again think of their sales price, from what I've read the US ones go through a much more thorough process and the guy that runs the company is much more concerned about their quality

things were bound to take a nose dive for LA dampers, here at least, once the traditional London Cab ceased production
Nigel Atkins

Hi Christian. "Hows the 2nd midget going?". Well it's going well, when I'm not trying to sort out oil sucking on the Sprite.
Lawrence Slater

Have £20 front dampers and all OK so far (2000 miles in 3 months ish). As far as I am concerned they are an easy swap. While £20 is annoying to fork out regularly its nothing compared to a front strut on a modern (I hate potholes in the dark).

Damper swap and wheel alignment is a day tops. (Once you know how its all done).

From scratch with hair pulling (just a figure of speech :-) and moaning to very considerate, understanding and helpful Guy Weller and Lawrence it took a weekend.

Just a reminder? toe out is inside wear and toe in is outside wear?
Dave Squire

This thread was discussed between 28/11/2013 and 29/11/2013

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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