Rear anti roll bar

[moggiegeek]

Just browsing and noticed BM's comments re ARB's "It's all about balance - if I fitted one at the front I would also want one on the rear, and probably stiffer rear springs and of course some negative camber on the front wheels. And decent wheels with wider tyres!" - well I've got the combination he describes ( new rather than stiffer rear springs), plus telescopics front and rear. and the handling is much improved - it also has decent polybushes everywhere except front tie bar.
I quite like the look of the moggie in this guise with front ARB but this is a question of taste of lack of it I suppose.
Has anyone found a way to fit rear ARB and with what effect?

[bmcecosse]

You're getting into the realms of 'competition' suspension. Some I know have balanced the addition of a front ARB by fitting Traveller 7 leaf rear springs . You would probably need to find a suitable bar in a scrappy - and rig up braketry yourself.

[philthehill]

The nearest and nearly 'ready to fit' rear anti-roll bar that you can get for your needs would be the Marina rear anti-roll bar.
It has mounting brackets for the links that can bolt to the underside of the car floor but you would have to fabricate mounting brackets for the actual anti-roll bar where it mounts on the Minor axle.
If you already have a Marina axle the mounting brackets are already fitted and the job is easy.
Islip minor has a Marina rear anti-roll bar fitted to his Minor and no doubt can give some tips on the actual fitting.
I agree with bmc in that unless you are going for all out handling and the suspension is balanced all round there is for a near standard Minor no requirement for a rear anti-roll bar. Traveller rear springs yes.
I do not have one fitted on my Minor and yet the car can be thrown around with ease.

[IslipMinor]

My intention as part of the restoration completed 16 years ago, was to create a car that would handle and stop at least as well as it would go with the 'new to us' 1380 engine. A very well-modified 1380 meant that it would 'go' well, and 4-pot calipers with Mintex competition pads meant it should stop even better! BUT, bearing in mind that this was all being done during the restoration, with no opportunity to try anything first, what was needed to be done to make it handle really well, plus some reserve capability if the need arose?

Competition was never a thought, but we have done numerous track days, so it does get a good work-out quite regularly.

As part of the thinking, I grafted an Ital rear antiroll bar on to our Minor. I had to make and weld support brackets on to the rear axle casing to mimic the Ital ones and then make brackets to bolt to the floor to take the front bar mountings. Also had to reinforce the floor where the brackets are fitted.

Being an early M1000, it already has the 7-leaf springs - not traveller which have thicker leaves (1/4") than the early saloons/convertibles (7/32"). 40+ years ago I softened them by moving the smallest, bottom leaf, turning it upside down and putting in back on top of the remaining 6 leaves. The effect is to soften the rear and lower it by 1.5/2" - exactly what I was wanting to achieve.

We also have anti-tramp bars fitted, with polyurethane bushes, so a bit more antiroll stiffness.

So, does a rear antiroll bar work?

Apart from the lowering and 13" wheels, the rest of the suspension mods were done as part of the restoration process - these included anti-tramp bars, Koni's all round, poly bushes everywhere, rear antiroll bar and Marina van stiffer torsion bars. It was immediately apparent that collectively it all worked remarkably well 'straight out of the box', but I had no way of knowing which bits were really providing the benefit.

Then, about 3 years after the restoration was completed, I thought the car was not handling as precisely as usual, but also thought that I had probably just got used to it. Looking underneath, I found that one of the standard Ital rear a/r bar clamping straps had broken, so the a/r bar was doing very little. Replacing it restored the precision back to normal, so, to answer the question, yes it does noticeably work!

[alexmcguffie]

Stiffening the front end (ARB or dampers or both) should lead to more understeer but can be cancelled out with more -ve camber giving a more precise turn in. Stiffening the rear with an ARB will increase oversteer unless balanced out with an even stiffer front end. Given the Minors narrow tyres and limited grip you don't want things too stiff or when it does let go it'll do it in a hurry. Better to have some roll so things feel more progressive, especially on todays third world roads...

[smithskids]

I had a marina rear anti roll bar fitted to my MM when it had the larger engine fitted a few years ago and found it was a bit too stiff but great with 4 people in it. As alexmcguffie says you have to have the balance right and more neg camber was needed to restore this when only 2 people were in the car. The other answer is adjustabe rear dampers. I had some on my 4 seater morgan and they did the trick if you had 4 people in.

[bmcecosse]

There's no doubt , better/wider tyres and wheels are the first step. Dampers can't be relied on for roll stiffness - sure in a quick wiggle-woggle they will steady the car, but in general all they can hope to do is limit the rate of roll. In general Koni dampers won't even do that very well - since they generally do most of their damping on the rebound stroke - although I guess they can probably be specified to provide damping on bump too.