Season's greetings gang;
I am currently in the process of cleaning up and modifying the front
suspension on my GT6+. The Lower a-arm sway bar link mounting brackets are in
excellent shape due to the undercoating some PO sprayed on everything. There
is no sign of damage or cracking of the welds or bracket. I did notice that
the bracket is only welded in four places. These welds are perpendicular to
the a-arms as the bracket is formed to fit inside the u-shape of the arm. BTW
my Triumph is equipped with a 7/8" sway bar so the forces that act on the
bracket are above average. Although the baracket is a quite substantial
truncated pyramid shape the forces that act on it are only absorbed by a small
portion of the bracket (less than 1/3) I would guess that the failure occurs
under the hole where the link mounts to the bracket, especially if the upper
wels crack from stress or improper welds. The design would have worked better
if the bracket starddled the a-arm and the welds continued down the back of
the bracket. Then a weld could have been made at the base of the bracket and
the whole assembly would have been stronger. This kind of modification can
still be done with a used or new a-arm. I am modifying my a-arm to get the
sway bar loads fed into the a-arm in the part of the bracket that straddles
the u-shape of the arm. That should allow for the solid sway bar mounts and
rod ends I'll be using.
I also plan to add stiffeners to the open part of the u-shape and the open
parts of the a-arm. This should help strengthen the arm when more forces will
be absorbed by the addition of stiffer shocks, nylatron bushings and a heavier
sway bar in solid mounts. Not to mention the solid mounts on the steering
rack. Suspension modifications put much more stress on the stock components,
which are marginal at best.
Greg Wolf
1970 GT6+ "Ian"
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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