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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Ouch!

Hi guys,


Noticed about a month ago the steering wheel had gone "skew-whiff", ie lh down and the ride height was lower on the nsf.



Had a quick look the same day, thinking that maybe the coil spring had broken? Nothing obvious when jacked up, wheel off. No clonks or bonks over and above the norm.



Had the chance to get the car on a ramp about a week later for a proper look.



Worryingly the rear bracket where the rear of the n/s wishbone bolts to the chassis leg was found to be cracking away from the chassis. Not rot, a nice oil film stops that, but stress fracture. Guessing it's a sad reflection on the state of the roads these days!



On dismantling the bottom third of the bracket drops out ie the lower part of the large hole where the stepped locating washer with the tab on fits. This lets the wishbone drop, effectively dropping the lower spring mounting pan hence the ride height lowers.



It's a cheap part, but quite involved getting in there to weld it and making sure it's square so the wishbone sits correctly.



Might be worth checking your brakets aren't cracking, a total failure could be pretty exciting!



Anyone else had this happen?



Regards Steve


Steve Smith Midget 1500

I have had a front n/side front one go in much the same way.

I welded in a replacement, using a long piece of bar with threaded ends, nuts and spacers to act as an alignment jig to get the front one correctly positioned and co-axial with the rear one.

I have always been surprised how thin the sheet steel is that they are made from, especially as the positioning of those funny bolt pivots relies on just the stepped washer arrangement in the big hole end.
GuyW

"Anyone else had this happen?"

No, but I know that MGB V8s have a problem with their steering rack mountings cracking.
Dave O'Neill 2

I agree Guy, the bracket itself is not that thick, plus the chassis leg doesn't appear to be that thick steel either! Guess they got the sress calculations right as it's done over 154,000 miles now. So many pot holes and speed bumps in the south east now can't be helping tho.



I'll sure be keeping a close check on them all from now on as the car gets used a lot.


A friend had a wishbone mount break on a TR4, caused quite a bit of damage, though that was a bolt on part.
Steve Smith Midget 1500

Also Steve, the amount of rallying that was done with the early cars at least did throw up various weaknesses some of which were certainly dealt with on subsequent production cars. Real life testing under pretty arduous conditions did result in beefing up various components, but as far as I know these brackets remained unaltered.
GuyW

Yup, my shell had that issue. Welded it back up again and I drive about trying not to think about how good (or bad) my welding might be! :-D

Malc.
Malcolm Le Chevalier

This thread was discussed on 28/09/2016

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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