My Bugeye's front curb weight is supported by two short fulcrum
pins less than 1 inch in diameter. That 1000 lb static load (and
much more dynamic) is carried only by the threaded ends of the two
pins which rotate so very slightly within their outer wishbone
threaded bushings. The fulcrum pin is locked to the swivel pin and
consequently the wear point is always on the exact same spots on
the male and female mating threads.
Without efficient lubrication, and poorly sealed with cork
gaskets, this assembly can wear quickly. From a safety point of
view, this is often the source of the too typical spridget front
end wobblies, which requiring major repair, is often put off.
Eventually, the assembly becomes impossible to disassemble. The
fulcrum pin refuses to unscrew. Then the swivel axle (which should
benefit from having no wearing surfaces) gets trapped in the
wishbone and the two major suspension components become wedded
together. The owner, usually after a valiant effort with sledge
hammer and torch, then sends the whole mess off to a specialist
overhauler for an exchange item of equal virtue.
A simple five penney improvement is to drill and tap in an extra
two grease fittings. Each new fitting would be opposite to the
one existing, on the fulcrum pin blanking plate. This one hour
modification can easily be carried out in situ, as the Brits would
say.
>From an engineering perspective it is one of the seven wonders of
the world, that this "load bearing thread" concept has through the
decades managed to hold up the front ends of hundreds of thousands
of the Empire's rolling stock. The eighth wonder is that this
1920's design convolution became so well imbedded in the English
system of "shelf engineering", that it escaped the attention of
the Design Office Managers and went on to survive, and possibly
help along, the demise of the Little British Car industry.
Mike Lupynec, P. Eng.
----- Original Message -----
From Reid Trummel <AHCUSA at excite.com>
To: <spridgets@autox.team.net>
Sent: April 21, 2000 8:30 AM
Subject: Improving Safety & Reliability
Hi all,
I'd like to ask for your help to compose an article for
Austin-Healey
Magazine on the subject of improving the safety and reliability of
Sprites.
Here's what the headline and lead will look like:
------------------
Improving Safety and Reliability
Owners' recommendations for improving the safety and reliability
of Sprites
We recently polled a group of Sprite owners for their suggestions
on what an
average owner could do, with limited time, tools and expertise, to
improve
the safety and reliability of Sprites. We received many good
suggestions
based on actual experience, and we're happy to share them with you
here As
always, we hope you'll find some food for thought and benefit from
others'
experience - that's why we have a club!
-------------------
This parallels a recent similar effort with big Healeys. We
received many,
many good suggestions and ideas and that article will be published
later
this year. I'd like to do the same for Sprites. To give you an
idea of the
format for input, here are a few typical entries in the big Healey
version:
---------------
Fred Hunter (fhunter@kcnet.com) of Parkville, Missouri responded:
"Bearing in mind that these items should be 'doable' in a weekend,
and
should be safety/reliability related:
1. Check spokes for any loose ones and tighten if necessary.
2. Install a hidden 'ignition ground' switch for theft
prevention.
3. Install a fire extinguisher in a USEABLE location.
4. Jack car up (use jack stands, too) and eyeball every inch of
the fuel
line from the tank to the carbs, looking for evidence of leakage.
Don't
forget to examine the fuel gauge sender unit and gas tank filler
neck on
some models for leaks, too. And check condition of gas filler cap
gasket.
This next one is obvious, but how many Healeys are running around
without
this:
5. Buy a quality set of jumper cables, find a nice cloth bag to
keep them
in, and LEAVE THEM IN THE BOOT - PERMANENTLY -- one set of jumper
cables per
household simply doesn't do the job. EACH VEHICLE you own should
have it's
own set (unless you know exactly which vehicle is going to have a
battery
problem before it happens!).
6. Buy a nice little used scissors jack & handle (such as come
with a
Honda, Toyota, Nissan, etc.) from a Japanese car wrecking yard,
find a cloth
pouch for it, and keep it in the boot in place of the original
jack.
7. Make yourself up a set of four little hardwood wheel chocks,
and put
them in the boot in, you guessed it, ANOTHER little cloth bag.
And how many of us actually own a set of real highway flares and
keep them
in the boot always?"
John Soderling (Jsoderling@aol.com) of Pleasanton, California
responded:
"This may not be the most important safety item, but I'd place it
in the top
five: Install a third brake light. With the small Healey
tail/brake lights,
low vehicle profile, and faster and heavier traffic than 30 to 40
years ago,
getting rear-ended is highly probable. With no head restraints
the
likelihood of serious neck injury is high."
Olin Kane (kanes@flash.net) of Albuquerque, New Mexico responded:
"One of the smartest and cheapest things you can do to improve the
reliability of the Healey is to transistorize the SU fuel pump.
Its costs
about $5 and you get to keep the ticking sound (but now it just
keeps on
ticking)."
-----------
So, please let me hear from you! I'll compile the responses and
give each
contributor a chance to review the whole article before we go to
press.
Thanks in advance!
Cheers,
Reid Trummel
AN5L44376 "Lucky"
http://www.healey.org
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