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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Front Sway Bar Advice

Hi All

I just need a little advice, I'm going to upgrade my front anti sway bar from the current factory 9/16" bar to a larger one...considering a 3/4" or 7/8" bar.

My midget is a '78 1500 & will never see a track or autocross...just a fun little weekend cruiser!

Which would you recommend for for spirited road use?

I've already upgraded all bushings front & rear with poly ones & love the feel...just looking for a bit better handling.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Dave :)
Dave Rhine ('78 1500)

Whichever size you go for, strengthen the chassis mount or it will eventually fatigue and crack. How we do ours is shown here http://www.mgparts.co.nz/bogs_car.html eighth row of pics, RH column
Paul Walbran

David leib tends to recommend the 3/4 inch for stock upgrades when this question comes up.

David is also is a big beliver in the "Adco" bar (a vary cool design) IMHO

But like all situations where one person is putting words in another persons mouth... Id ask david directly for varification.

prop

Prop

Hi, Dave.

I'm not the only one who's replaced my ARB with a heavier one, only to have the mounts tear out of the chassis rails later.

Although the heavier bar really does make a positive difference, you'll want to reinforce the mounting area. The spot welds that hold the bottom skins on pull loose, allowing the skin to flex, fatigue, and finally tear away.

In my case, a friend and I used 1/8" thick stock to make up patch sections, to which we welded the mounts themselves, before seam-welding the patches to the underside of the chassis rails. That was back in July of '06, and the repairs have held up nicely.

I took a bunch of pics of the repair process, and have just uploaded them to my Flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/safety_fast/sets/72157623942645649/

Just in case! ;-)

Cheers,

-:G:-

PS: I see that two others responded while I was creating that photo set. Paul's "fix" looks similar to ours.
Gryf Ketcherside

Nice solid repair Gryf. In our one, having seen it happen to others, we got in first which is why we plated with 2mm over the whole thing, producing a truss effect. It was much easier to do that than ealier when repairing a broken one on another car, where we did a repair similar to yours.
Paul Walbran

WOW!

Thanks for the quick responses...now that y'all mention it, I remember reading a thread some time ago about the mounts pulling loose.

Got a Mig & some flat stock out in the garage.
Dave Rhine ('78 1500)

Dave,

Spooky I have just done mine two days ago as part of my restoration, I also wanted to improve ground clearance by moving the ARB mount up into the chassis leg: (Which MG had kindly fitted so it was not quite parallel to the chassis leg ;))






S Deakin

I went a slightly different route as I decided to try and spread the ARB loads throughout the chassis leg box section:

One side of the mount was seam welded to the side of the box section which is very stiff vertically,

the front edge of the mount was tied in to the bumper / towing eye mounts to bring the other side of the box section into play

And you can also see a 2mm thick vertical skin which goes up to the top face of the box section and seam welded to it.






S Deakin

I went up just one gauge on the lower skin (1.6mm ?) as the vertical skins are bearinging more of the load now with the lower skin both plug and semi seam welded to the box section.

It was a bit more of a faff but it gives about 9 - 10mm more ground clearance.

I am also putting mounts on top of the chassis rail which might render this mount redundant but I prefer to have this mount present if the upper mount doesn't work out.

All the mods in this thread should help the ARB perform more effectively as the installation stiffness of the ARB mounts effectively reduces the ARB rate hence sometimes thicker ARB's are just making up for lack of mount stiffness

Cheers

Spencer


S Deakin

Hi Spencer,
now you will want some of these..


Brad (Sprite IV 1380)

Hi Brad,

Yes mate, I have some 'previously enjoyed' ones from another project which I have ear marked as drop links

P.S. I'm still working on the simulation stuff it's just taking a long time to properly model the behaviour of leaf springs

Cheers

Spencer


S Deakin

Are those ali or s/s brackets?
Your also need the conical adapters.
Brad (Sprite IV 1380)

Brad,

Yes I'll get some tapered spacers turned up when I trial fit all of it

If you mean the bits of metal just in the corner of the picture they are the 2mm steel spacers for my Anglia rear axle (they replace the thickness of the drum backplate when converting to discs)




S Deakin

I posted my diagrams for the spacers a while back, should save you a bit of time.
I thinking of going to discs too, just to get rid of the handbrake assy, but first i've got to stop breaking other bits of the car.
Brad (Sprite IV 1380)

S,

Id be rather fearful of making the whole assembly to mmmm, whats the word im searching for....to rigid, to over built, to strong, basically making the assembly to hard and the car wont steer correctly,,, go into a corner and steering one way and the front just keeps going straight and into the wall/ditch

Still I love the concept


Prop... I still have to learn my left from my other left before I learn my over steer vs my under steer
Prop

Thanks guys...I'm going with a 3/4" bar & will reinforce the frame mounts.

Dave :)
Dave Rhine ('78 1500)

This thread was discussed between 15/05/2010 and 16/05/2010

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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