I have a question, but first let me give some info that may or may not
help in the diagnosis of the alleged problem. This could be one of those
things where if it hurts you don't do it anymore.
As most know out there I have a '77 MGB, that is more or less stock, in
the sense that all of the parts come from one year of MGB or another.
Except of course the tyres. The tyres I am running on the car are
215R60x14 on Rostyle wheels, and this may be the souce of the problem.
The rear anti-sway bar on the car has two mount points at either end of
it, well just past the bends of the bar there are two places where the
bar mounts or is held in place by rubber bushes of a sort. I will
attempt a little ascii art to describe:
/----#--------------------#----\
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o o
Well where the # signs are the area of discussion. The rubber is in
good shape, the brackets appear to be in good shape. So what happens is
every couple of days I must take a turn (I suspect that it is a right
turn) that may be too hard. Because invariably the driver side bush
breaks loose of it's mounting, and I have to crawl under the car and
re-install it. The car does not appear to have any Brownian movement or
extra play or anything. The car handles great, the only clue that it has
broke free again is that I have this very annoying rattle where the bar
rattles around in the mount without the rubber bush.
So has anybody ever had this problem, and have a clue as to what might
be causing this phenomenon? Or is it like I expected that my tyre size is
sufficiently large enough that they hold the road quite well and there
is too much lateral force on the sway bar and causes it to break free of
the bush. The tyres don't break free when making hard turns left or
right, but I do make far more hard rights than I do hard lefts.
And if it is a combination of driving habits and tyres, could the road
surface also make a difference? Here in Phoenix we have some of the
roughest, pot-hole ridden roads known to man. I kid you not, at times I
think of how nice a kidney belt would fell. I literally have to go out
once a week to tighten down nuts and bolts for fear of having all the
finest of British parts falling off the car. I have wondered if it would
also be to my benefit to use Lock-tite or some such.
Thanks again in advance for all replies,
Bruce...
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