Ernest Davis writes >
> My '66 Sprite autoxer has suffered a common (I am told) failure: one of the
> front anti-sway bar mounts has been ripped most of the way out of the frame
> extension. Thankfully, it went quietly/slowly, and no scary moments ensued.
Been there. Done that. I had this happen to my '66 Midget after running
on a banked oval. And I still had wimpy tires then. When I parked the
car in the garage and got out, I wondered what the squeak was. It was the
metal bending back as my weight left the driver's seat.
I took the car to a serious welder, who welded up all the cracks and laid
a bead all around the tapping block which BMC provided.
> The bar is a 7/8" Winner's Circle piece,
And a fine piece of work it is. I was very impressed with mine. The 3/4"
might be more suitable if either you have very stiff front springs or you
just want a less masochistic ride on the street. I had stock springs up
front, and I LIKED the massive amount of roll stiffness the 7/8" bar
provided. Hit a bump with one wheel, though, and you know it!
> with thin nylon bushings at the frame and Heim (sp?) joints on the ends.
Your spelling is correct. Our British friends call them "rose joints".
The generic term in the USA is "spherical rod ends".
> The frame extensions do not appear to have been modified or repaired
> previously.
I did have a fitting problem when I went remount the Winner's Circle bar.
The bead on each side of the tapping block interfered with the
setscrew-equipped steel collars used to locate the bar and retain the
split nylon bushing which snap over the bar. Ordinarily, the collars abut
sides of the tapping block and their peripheries clear the frame. The
extra weld was in the way. My solution was to make up aluminum spacer
blocks the same size as the tapping blocks and insert them between the
tapping blocks and the Winner's Circle swaybar brackets. This of course
required slightly longer Grade 5 bolts to ensure full threading into the
tapping blocks. As a result, the sway bar rode about 3/8" lower. I had
no problems with this setup in two years of major-grin autocrossing.
> I have access to a skilled welder at a decent rate, and would like to repair
> and reinforce the area, but I need advice from those who have been
there.
If (s)he is a skilled welder with experience welding this thickness of
metal, (s)he will know what to do. The only improvement I might have
tried was to drill out the tapping plate threads and run longer bolts all
the way through the frame box and secure with nylock nuts over a backing
plate on the top of the frame. This is probably way overkill, but I was
holding it in reserve if the fix I had ever showed signs of strain.
Phil Ethier, THE RIGHT LINE, 672 Orleans St, Saint Paul, MN 55107-2676 USA
h (612) 224-3105 w (612) 266-6244 phile@stpaul.gov
"Your pedal extremities are colossal" - Jelly Roll Morton
(What you feel like driving a Europa)
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