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Re: Spitfire Castor

To: Nolan Penney <npenney@mde.state.md.us>
Subject: Re: Spitfire Castor
From: James Carruthers <j.carruthers@rave.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2004 11:36:57 +0100
Thanks Nolan - insightful as ever...

This whole trunion breaking thing - surely if the castor has been set to 
Triumph spec then everything will be ok... ? Or are you saying castor 
shouldnt be set - and it should be a by-product of the toe?

I can of course check all this by looking at the shims - and if I 
remember correctly there were uneven amounts - so it seems it was adjusted.

Thirdly.... as castor is a part of the toe settings - surely they cant 
charge me for doing both! Possibly...



James



Nolan Penney wrote:

>No, caster is adjustable.  It's adjustable the same way it is for any
>production double a-arm front suspension car.  You use an unequal
>quantity of shims under the lower a-arm mounts to "tilt" the arm forward
>or back, changing the castor.
>
>The caveat is that a Spitfire doesn't use a double ball joint
>suspension, it  uses a trunnion on the bottom instead.  The trunnion
>only has two axis of rotation, not the three a ball joint has.  So it
>doesn't take kindly to being shoved forward and backwards.  This induces
>wear on the trunnion, and can lead to breakage.  This is something I've
>been pointing out for years, that you've got to be careful about this
>with regards to Spitfires.  Glad to see one of the louder nay sayers has
>finally seen the light. 
>
>And, of course, the shop that worked on your car may not have adjusted
>it anyhow, and simply noted it incorrectly in their repair write up.





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