front suspension

[dad]

i want to upgrade my front suspension moss have a kit using spax shocks does anyone know if they are any good,or should i look somewhare else....

[Peetee]

I have the adjustable spax shocks on the front and rear of my convertible. Be prepared for a rough ride as even on the softest setting they produce a considerably harder ride than standard.

[dad]

thanks for that perhaps ill look at charles whares.

[hotrodder13]

moss's kit seems really expensive, i was thinking about this from esm http://morrisminorspares.co.uk/shop/pro ... 70a24085e8
just under 100 quid cheeper, anyone got any reviews on this ??

[ratrodmog]

The problem with the ESM Spax kit is the size of the shocks. Look at how small they look, almost like a Mini shock. The Spax kit from Moss have much better travel and also the mounting brackets look much, much better. Personally I think the extra £100 from Moss is worth it.

[hotrodder13]

well i went for jlh rear kit which was an extra hundread quid, im doin it proper

[Matt]

The spax on my trav go from really really soggy to rock hard Pete...

[dad]

hi did you buy them as a kit?

[d_harris]

They came on his car

[bmcecosse]

Have you tried the SAE 40 oil in dampers trick ? It works - and is usually sufficent for a road car . Costs very little - worth trying. If you DO decide to go for tele dampers - best avoid any 'bolt on' kits..........

[ratrodmog]

Sorry BMC, I have to dissagree with you there. The majority of 'bolt on' kits must work or why else would they be selling? I have seen some really nicely engineered kits that have great geometry, easy to fit/ service etc and are well priced. Why are you against these?

[Peetee]

I tried SAE 40 oil in the standard dampers of two of my cars. The performance results were very good on both cars. What let the idea down for me was that on the second car, the seals failed on three of the dampers in a very short time. Prior to the uprated oil they had been fine.

[Chris Edgar]

I put SAE 30 oil in the front dampers of both cars & the results were very good indeed.
However since then, one of the front ones on the Tourer has started leaking, so I've ordered a reconditioned replacement which should arrive tomorrow.
But that's only one out of four where a problem has happened.

I reckon that in an old (maybe 1/2 a century old) damper, the extra pressure has just pushed it over the edge. Even so, with the cost at just over £16 exchange, it's got to be a very cheap way of improving things.

Chris

[bmcecosse]

The 'bolt on' kits are not well engineered - but carry on - it's your car...........

[ratrodmog]

[Rich_T]

I was looking at one of the bolt on kits for mine, out of interest how badly engineered are they? I had one on a Minor a few years ago and is was fine without any obvious issues
Rich

[IslipMinor]

I can't speak for other 'bolt-on' kits, but I have a Koni telescopic conversion front and rear that came from the late 60's / early 70's. I bought it secondhand at an autojumble in the mid 90's and fitted it as part of the restoration completed in 1998.

The dampers are oil, not gas, and are set to 'full hard' on the front and 'full soft' on the rear. The front seemed a bit under-damped, so after a couple of years all 4 dampers were sent to Koni for refurb and 30% increased bump valving on the front. The ride is firm, but never harsh.

I have fitted Spax gas dampers twice to 'moderns' and both times found them harsh, even on 'full soft'. Maybe just unlucky?

The front is the original bolt-on kit and, with one small exception (I have moved the lower pick-up point outwards slightly), is exactly as it was designed at the time and seems to work very well.

The rear was designed to fit between the axle and the original body mount for the lever arm damper, which meant that the telescopic damper would lie quite flat, which is not ideal at all. There is not much room between the rear inner wing and the inside of the tyre to fit them vertically as the Bath MM Centre kit, so I made up a cross-member and fitted them at an inclined angle, which again seems to work well, although not ideal geometry.

Do they operate in a truly vertical mode? No they do not, but I did not want to create turrets and make other intrusive mods to the body.

Are they 'well designed'? Yes, apart from one small weld failure on one of the original front mounting brackets, there have been no problems with either the original design or the adaptation at the rear.

Do they work well? Yes they do extremely well, the ride is very well damped, not harsh and the car is ridiculously stable at all speeds on all road/track surfaces - including some very poor surfaces in various parts of Euorpe.

Do they pass the 'well engineered' test? If you are measuring by 'proper' suspension geometry standards, probably not as the rears are quite inclined, and should be vertical. The fronts are much closer to vertical.

Are they an real improvement over the standard lever arms? Definitely! The ride and handling is far better that I could have imagined it would be whilst designing it all during the resoration, with no opportunity to test things before committing to them (rather like current F1 !!), and the Konis are a big part of that, so I am very happy with the compromise I have.

[dad]

now i dont know what to do!!!!!!!

[MarkyB]

I was wondering when lever arm shocks went out of use and when telescopics were invented.
Apparently "In 1901, C. L. Horock created the first modernized shock absorber and called it the "telescopic shock absorber." Shock absorbers manufactured today are still based on his initial concept."

The set up on the front of a Minor is an elegant engineering solution, using the lever as the top element as well as doing the damping.

At the rear, boot space is maximised which makes a lot of sense as Issigonis was designing a family saloon car, not a racer.

[bmcecosse]

A lever arm damper is just a folded-up tele damper! I don't know why folk seem to despise them so much. Especially as they can be easily 'adjusted' by changing the oil viscosity - and by adjusting the valves. Konis are excellent dampers - with the unique feature that they ONLY damp on rebound - and so indeed they don't make the suspension harsh. I can also vouch for their long life having used a set on various Minis over the years - even when the outer shrouds had rusted away - the piston rods were still immaculate - and the dampers worked as well as ever with no sign of leakage. They were not popular on Rally Minis - because it was felt they allowed the suspension to 'hammer down' on rough surfaces - the heavy rebound damping not allowing the suspension to recover by stretching out after each bump so that it could absorb the next one !