In a message dated 3/10/99 9:52:15 AM EST, mra@sympatico.ca writes:
<< Seeing Morgans mentioned on the list reminds me of a
rumour I heard - maybe someone can confirm.
I heard that with the growth of SUV sales in N.
America, Morgan was planning to develop and sell a
3x3..
any truth?
>>
Well now , you've let the cat (Morgan) out of the bag haven't you ! It's not
exactly the factory, but I've been woking with Peter, of course. If you have
not yet heard, we've a new track coming in New Mexico. A little West of
Albuquerque. I've got a 36 F2 Morgan that I wanted to prepare for racing
here. Of course AWD is superior to 1WD so I thought I'd work in that
direction. The challenge has been to keep the signature IRS sliding pillar
front suspension intact while getting power to the front wheels. The front
wheel spindles to the Morgan attach into the sliders on the front suspension,
What've we've done is to make that spindle longer by 6 inches, cut a keyway
into the spindle and the aluminium hubs to lock the spindle to the hub. WE had
to fabricate two bearing carriers which we welded to the inside and the
outside of the front sliders, since the bearings are usually carried inside
the aluminium hub. Now all we had to do was to get power to the spindle. The
thought of taking the power off the 8 HP (RAC) Ford engine did not appeal, so
we searched for alternatives. We decided to go electric on the front end.
Since the vehicle is chain driven we wanted to keep that means of power
transmission. "AWD Chain Drive", has a real ring to it don't you think? We
fabricated two sprockets, one for each front wheel spindle. We then decided
that the best way to get power to the front end was electricity. What with
some of the big boys developing electirc hybreds Morgan has to keep up don't
you think? Now, given that Morgans are still assembled in the original
factory, with very limited room, we had to be extremely conscious of space,
not to mention that there's only a couple of cubic inches of space under a
Morgan F2 bonnet. Well we looked to the US space industry for small electric
motors. After all the space industry got it's start here in NM. I checked
with friends at Los Alamos National Laboratory. WE computed the amount of
torque available at the rear wheel and wanted to match that at each of the
front wheels. Can you imagine our surprise when we discovered a miniature
electric motor with similat torque characteristics to the original Ford
engine. It's found in many of the newer electric tooth brushes !! Well to
cut the story short, the biggest problem we've had is to find a chain and
sprocket design to move the power to the front wheel spindles. We had to go
with a customized lap top computer and program to control the torque. The
controls for this are placed on the steering wheel where the spark advance
lever usually goes. We'll let you know the progress. I really wish you
wouldn't have let the Morgan out of the bag till a little more development.
Bob Paul
F376 1936 Morgan AWD
|