Slack Radius Arms (VX1600)

[Graham S]

I have noticed that both radius arms have become very slack on my VX1600. I have tried tightening them from under the wheel arch and the whole thing seems to be turning. I am planning to cut a 25mm hole in the cockpit panels (to avoid removing the panels and to allow access for again) to get access with a socket to tighten them or replace them depending on what I discover once I get in there. I plan to then seal the holes with blank rubber grommets. Has anyone else experienced this problem on a live axle car, am I going about this the right way.

 

Sinky

[Graham S]

BTT

[Shaun_E]

I believe some chassis have a threaded bush for the bolt and others have a through hole so a nut is required. If your's is the latter then your plan sounds good - if not you have a more serious problem. If the thread in the bush is no good though, you can clean in out and use a longer bolt with a nut.

 

Yellow SL #32

[Graham S]

Thanks Shaun, for a while I thought I was on my own with this one, I will take a look at it on Saturday, so fingers crossed it is the nut and bolt arrangement, the fact that both sides of the car seem to be very slack makes me hopeful it is, but I will have to wait and see.

[Graham S]

I have just checked my car and I see it has a nut on the outside bolt, I think I am correct in assuming that it must be as simple as a nut and bolt arrangement right through then, i.e no threaded bushes or captive nuts?

[Chas Guirey]

Sinky - I would be interested to hear what you find can you please let us know thanks Chas

[Shaun_E]

Yep - sounds like you have a nut and bolt arrangement.

 

Yellow SL #32

[Graham S]

Chas, once I removed the seats I discovered that the bolt heads for the radius arms were full exposed, there was a hole cot in the panels to get at the bolt heads, so as you can imagine that made things rather straight forward. Both sides were extremely slack, I also found that the bolts going through the other side of the radius arms were also pretty slack so I tightened them right up as well (40 lb-ft) according to the build manual. I think anyone else running a live axle should check these from time to time as this was causing quite a bit of play on the rear wheels. once I tightened everything up and got the seats back in I took a short test drive and all the knocking I was experiencing before has certainly dissappeared. I would be interested to know if anyone else has experienced these bolts working slack or is it just that my car never had them properly torqued up. I will certainly be keeping a closer eye on this in the future as I would imagine any of these bolts shearing could prove disasterous if they broke at the wrong time.

 

Sinky

[GregP]

Both of mine had worked loose and the MOT man noticed before I did. *mad*Annoyingly I wasn't allowed to do a quick re-torque in the testing centre, I was sent away to order new bushes which weren't required. One quick tighten up at home and it sailed through.