Bent suspension component, tell me what you think

[zhastaph]

I've been suffering from a bit of clonking from the suspension on the left hand side of the car recently, the front clonks a bit when pushing her into corners and when braking. This turned out to be a bit of movement in the bush on the upper wishbone, these have all been replaced with poly's now and is fine.

I've also been having similar on the rear for quite some time, it's more of an engine mount sort of clonk that clonks on acceleration and deceleration. I eventually traced this down to the radial arm pivot mount - it's torn - which I was going to change to change.

Anyway, I've taken it out and found this;





Ay you can see the bolt is bent right where it exits the mount, and the snub washer is desperately bent where it's been trying to pull through.








The 2 bolts that hold the mounting to the chassis were almost completely undone when I started looking at it the other week, and the whole bush just wobbled around all over the place. Could this be the reason that this has happend?

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I'm just interested in peoples views on this.

How's it got like this?

My guessing is that either it's something to do with the fatc that the mounting was barely hanging in by it's bolts or that someone has belted a curb or something which has resulted in the bolt being bent and the rest is just a result of the bent bolt pulling on the rest of the components. All the rest of the suspension components are fine. The car doesn't wander or have any strange tyre wear or anything.

The other side looks nothing like this and is as good as new.

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For the short term I'm going to straighten the bolt and washer, replace the mounting. With the intention of replacing the bolt and washer in the next couple of weeks as I really wouldn't be comfortable leaving it like that.

Any comments?

Cheers, Col

>> Edited by zhastaph on Saturday 4th June 14:54

>> Edited by zhastaph on Saturday 4th June 21:21

[zhastaph]

All Done

I've actually managed to get a new bolt and nyloc nut, though it was fractionally bigger due to it being metric. Half an hour with the Dremel soon fixed that though

The snub washer we managed to heatup with a blow torch and flatten and the mounting itself has been replaced.

I cant believe how much better the car feels now though She was always great through high speed turn, but coming out of slow speed right hand turns has always felt a bit 'urgh' - difficult to explain, but I'm guessing it's down the to wheel toeing in under acceleration. Now she just feels 'connected'

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I'd still be interested in anybody's thoughts on how it's got this way? The mounting itself was torn right through also.

[kmaier]

Most likely the retainer bolts loosened up and you lost the alignment shims (if you don't have any, the rear toe on the wheel is most certainly off). From there it just bangs a lot on accel/decel which accounts for the damage. I suggest you have a competent shop align the car knowing what happened to the one suspension setup.

Regards, KM
2000 V8

[jk1]

zhastaph said:

All Done I've actually managed to get a new bolt and nyloc nut, though it was fractionally bigger due to it being metric. Half an hour with the Dremel soon fixed that though I'd still be interested in anybody's thoughts on how it's got this way? The mounting itself was torn right through also.

I had a similar situation right after I bought my car. The right side pivot bolt in mine actually snapped in half as I was pulling out of my driveway allowing the whole wheel assembly to slide back into the rear bumper and make mincemeat out of it. The mount was not loose like yours. I can only imagine what would have happened if it had broken going around a turn at 80mph .

My mounting bolts were not loose like yours but I suspect the bolt failure was caused by an incident involving a previous owner when the car had been slid into a curb severely damaging the right rear suspension and the bolt probably wasn't replaced.

What kind of bolt did you replace it with? Extreme caution is advised that you do not use just any bolt off the shelf for this application. A grade "8" for instance would not be recommended here as even though it is very strong, it is also very brittle and will break before it bends which you don't want to happen. As you can see your original bolt did bend instead of breaking which could have caused dire consequences.

I replaced both of mine with high quality aircraft AN bolts which should be substantially better than the OEM bolts.

Cheers,
Jim
95 S4s

[zhastaph]

Your right on the toe adjustment shims. After I originally noticed it was loose i checked the other side and saw all the shims and didn't think too much of it.

Last night, however, I was looking through the service notes and noticed that the toe shims just slot in with only having to loosen all the bolts etc, so it's quite reasonable to assume that the shims have been dumped on the road someplace at some point

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I've just repalced one half of the bushes on the car with Polyurethane's {she's actually now clonk free }, over the next few weeks I will do the other side. After which I'll have the whole alignment done.

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As for the bolt, erm yeah I went into the local iron monger and said "Got anything a bit like this?"

I wasn't that bothered at the time as to me it doesn't look like the joint takes that much of a load, but you've scared me now with your bust bolt

[cnh1990]

jk1 said:

I can only imagine what would have happened if it had broken going around a turn at 80mph .

I didn't know that you drove that slow around turns.

You were pretty lucky it fell apart just outside the driveway. One of these days I will make down there for a visit. Bending is better than breaking that is for sure.

Calvin

>> Edited by cnh1990 on Sunday 5th June 15:24

[jk1]

cnh1990 said:

I didn't know that you drove that slow around turns. You Calvin

That's only when I'm not driving with KM and Brigitte, they're crazy...HA!

Calvin, please be sure and let us know if you make it down here as I would love to return the hospitality favor....

Cheers,
Jim

[kmaier]

jk1 said:

cnh1990 said: I didn't know that you drove that slow around turns. You Calvin That's only when I'm not driving with KM and Brigitte, they're crazy...HA! Calvin, please be sure and let us know if you make it down here as I would love to return the hospitality favor.... Cheers, Jim

Hey, I resemble that remark.... seems to me you had the lead part for a good share of driving back... but, ah what fun.

Regards, KM
2000 V8

[cnh1990]

jk1 said:

Calvin, please be sure and let us know if you make it down here as I would love to return the hospitality favor.... Cheers, Jim

I'll make a point of it. Sounds like you have found some pretty fun Lotus people down there. Driving driving behind KM almost sounds driving behind Dave Cammack. Glad to hear you and the car are doing fine.
Calvin