In my first article about the Fulvia's suspension, I apologised for the lack of pictures to illustrate the points I made.
The more recent articles have managed pictures, but now thanks to Neal, I have a good picture of the original front suspension arrangement. This shows S II 1300 front suspension (pressed steel wishbone), but the installation is identical to other models.
The more recent articles have managed pictures, but now thanks to Neal, I have a good picture of the original front suspension arrangement. This shows S II 1300 front suspension (pressed steel wishbone), but the installation is identical to other models.
Note: the rubber is brand new. Picture: Neal SimsIn my original article, I wrote:
The one, to me, unpleasant compromise at the front in all series, is the means of coupling the upper wishbone to the transverse leaf spring: the famous rubber. Consider how the suspension operates: as the wheel rises, the upper wishbone moves towards the horizontal. At the same time (since they are joined) the spring is gradually straightened, so of course it effectively “lengthens” in positional terms. Of course as the wheel falls the process is reversed. This all means that the rubber is subjected to considerable shear loads and thus offers substantial resistance to suspension movement.
A little study of the picture should help you to appreciate my points!À bientôt
4 comments:
I have not yet found a period ex works off road prepaired Fulvia HF fitted with the roller. I've only seen it on asphalt cars like Sports Competiziones. Probably the big jumps the cars have to make during the stages make the sturdy and absorbing rubber preferable over the tighter turn-in the roller arrangement provides. Besides the problem of keeping the dirt out of the bearing!
Yes, the rough stuff might have been a factor as you say. As for keeping the dirt out, on my car I used a pair of rubber bellows from the intakes of Renault 12s (cleverly found by Doug Ellis). Even better, the end fits perfectly into the I.3S spring cover rubber!
Understand that on racing zagato Flavia they used free end rubbers with greese - so only attached onto transverse spring. This seems to allow similar movement to the roller method without sacrificng on shock absorbing quality of std silent block.
Yes I've seen that done in England
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