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Uprights


Mark H

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Can any of you help 🤔, im about to rebuild my old 7 with a few nice modern bits *tongue*, Will the top joint from the latest top wishbone fit the old iron upright. IE. is the tapper the same 🤔

 

flares n, flames

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Just to add to this story, i had a trunnion/upright failure this afternoon *eek* in the S4, thankfully i was going slowly for once 😳. managed to shear the threaded stub from the bottom of the upright, God only nows what could of happened if i wasnt going so slowly 😳.

So i have made up my mind to do away with them on my caterham.

 

 

Marc.

 

flares n, flames

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Marc

 

I had a similar experience on the locust about 6 yrs ago i.e. low speed manouvring on a car park and trunnion fails. That seems to be when it happens - for every one I've been told about anyway.

 

I got all brand new uprights and trunnions + assoc. bits etc for both sides from a Triumph specialist for about £150 (if I remember correctly). Always get new OE spec trunnions and new dust seals etc as well.

 

Don't be fooled that your existing setup is flawed;

 

1. It's probably lasted 30+years already and (probably) will have had periods of neglect and abuse i.e. not regularly oiled with EP90. Time and neglect is what kills trunnions because sh1t, wear and corrosion take over.

 

2. When the locust was written off last year (long story/not my fault), the vertical link on the left side was bent but the trunnion didn't break after 5 years on the car and approx 40-50k miles. That is as strong as it needs to be in my view.

 

3. Replacing the existing with new spares saves the agrevation/cost of new wishbones etc.

 

/Lecture mode off

 

Cheers

 

Ian

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Hi Marc

 

Just done this very mod. The Ball joint is from a Fiat 134 (and other Fiats) and had a part Quinton Hazell part no. of QR118. All was well until I put the nose cone back on - or not coz the new ARB is bigger and so some cutting / grinding of the nose cone is needed.

 

John

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I just drive the car back to my garage.

 

No more trunnion, real wishbones and leda dampers and springs

 

great improvement, more precise and better dampers

And safer, all that due to a low speed trunnion/upright failure

 

So don't use trunnions that will be my advise

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Well as im about to complete a total rebuild to my own spec theres no doubt i shall not be including the old trunnions in the new designs. The only headache at the moment is the question of the damper angles and spring rates , but a heplful engineer who works at lotus is on the case , so i should have a spec. soon .

 

We also intend to incorperate an SV. De Dion tube in a standard chassis, so the track will be equal front and rear.

Once i have got it up and running i,l report back.

 

 

Marc,

Anglia Sevens.

 

flares n, flames

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Why don't you use the Caterham kit

 

It will fit directly , bolted on the front arb

the real wishbone will fix

 

The kit will come complete according to your chassis specs

 

regards

eric

 

The other solution is to modified the front chassis to accept the modern wihbones

Easy for you, not for me (in France)

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We have had the trunnion debate many times. Non trunnion uprights also fail, around the bottom welds. The only advantage of non trunnions, is no oil to put in. Triumph used trunnions for years and years along with many kit built cars, so they can't be that bad.

 

Most trunnion fail because of bad maintenance *biggrin*

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  • Leadership Team

Based on this, I went out at the weekend to buy a decent grease gun as the cheap one which I had previously never seemed to have much luck at getting oil into the trunnion grease nipple.

 

Guess what, the new gun has the same problem - so what am I doing wrong? Is it that the fitting is wrong? The gun doesn not "snap" onto the nipple - should it? All I seem to get is oil on the floor. I have taken the nipple off and the spring valve thingy does push in OK... Advice please!

 

Thanks - Michael.

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