After reading the ton of advice from this website (and there was a
ton, all of it well thought out and clear) I forgot the lotus position
and instead assumed the Morgan position,sprawled on my side, trouble
light in hand, and gave those spring steel flat blades good solid
fore-and-aft pulls. One moved a little (lhs) the other moved about a
quarter of an inch. That one I attacked first, removed the white-metal
wheel stops mounted just aft of the similar white-metal "bridge" for
the blade mechanism. Then I loosened aft bolt to push the shim in,
but....no shim! Piqued now, I took the whole assembly apart and no
shim on the other bolt either.
Now really interested, I looked at the other side. A similar story: no
shims there, either.
The whole assembly in this car, a 57 Plus 4, consists of a STEEL bar
about 1/8 thick and two inches long and 3/4 wide, this pot-metal (I
think) bridge structure which has a 1/16th or so wide groove on one
side for the blade to slide in and out of, and raises the whole
assembly off the frame of the vehicle by about 1 1/2". No bronze
nothin', no shims.
Here's question #1: if there's a groove already in this bridge
structure which effectively spaces the spring steel piece from the
clamping STEEL bar above, what possible good would a couple of shims
do? The clearance on this car (at least) is determined by the depth of
this groove worn or machined (hard to tell which) into the pot-metal
bridge structure.
Question # 2: Should I machine away this groove, render all plane and
smooth, add bushings, BRONZE bar above (or two BRONZE bars,and make
the "sandwich" noted on John Blair's page) and adjust til snug?
Question # 3: And if I do this, the shims, at least as pictured in
Melvyn Rutter's catalogue (6th edition, p. 16, diagram) appear to
rotate about an axis determined by the bolt location. This means the
shims are rarely parallel to the spring steel, and instead describe an
angle with the edge of the spring steel piece. Is this right? If so,
doesn't the shim tend to either ride above or below the spring steel
piece?
Question #4: If and when I add the shims, shouldn't I replace the
damper blades as well to assure a proper thickness so that the shims
are more likely to slide along the blade than slip under it?
(You all did such a great job setting me up for this weekend's effort,
that I hope you won't mind my asking more about this feature which is
certainly unique to the Morgan car.
Regards (and heartfelt thanks!) to all-
Chip Brown
|