B type. Anti roll bar ?

[Darren (Fl@pper) James]

Anyone tried running the triumph suspension with an anti roll bar 

Front is easy enough to adapt just wondered if it’s worth adding But rear I would imagine might induce the tuck in hmmmm

[Darren (Fl@pper) James]

testing plans afoot 

thinking of slimming the rear spring down a few leaves to soften it up and try out the old Z bar design once it’s rolling 

[Darren (Fl@pper) James]

Just thinking of making rear softer so I can control the handling a lil more through an adjustable bar and tuned shocks 

confess weight is bad of course but a tighter adjustable front and back could keep the tuck in at bay and make for a flatter more neutral ride. :) and who doesn’t like a little induced oversteer when needed :):):)

[James Doulton]

I seem to remember that the purpose of a roll bar is two fold: a) to reduce the roll for passenger comfort b) to increase the weight transfer so as to induce understeer, in the case of a front roll bar. I might have remembered that wrongly but I think that people used to complain about Ford trying to create understeer in the Escorts. Recent events make me quite a fan of understeer!

[Darren (Fl@pper) James]

Exactly. But a soft from bar can be used to smooth out a harsh rear end which is the one I’m after sorting 

tightening up the rear is gonna be oversteer full time albeit with less tucking in so a little tweakable help up front might balance back a bit 

going to be trial an error for sure even before considering track width, bump and rebound, tyre profile and corner weighting Just tweak away til I get to the point of feeling it’s with me as it were. 

[James Doulton]

The amount of effect from a roll bar will depend partly on how much roll there is to work with. If the car doesn't roll a lot then the effect might be relatively small. I have measured the body roll in pictures of my car when it was going around Castle Combe (when it chose to go around rather then come off) and I got just less than 3 degrees with a passenger and 2 degrees without. As I was pulling 0.8g or more at the time, then there was quite a lot of tyre distortion on the outside wheel so some of that roll would not be detected by the roll bar. On the Legerra, because the front suspension is partly from an Escort, then the anti-roll bar also locates the bottom of the strut, so I can't just remove it to see what effect it has on the handling. It would be an interesting experiment.

My Malaga B+ has a Triumph front end with an anti roll bar which I think is removable but that car hasn't got out of my garage yet so I can't tell what effect it has. It may be that it has little effect on the handling and just makes the suspension a little harder going over bumps that only affect one side.

[Darren (Fl@pper) James]

Good point. I suppose plan best get it rolling and see what base is first. No point  adding weight and work for hell of it after all. 

As for escort suspension. Years ago my buddy pulled the bumpers and brackets off to cut down for corner bumpers and although the roll bar was attached to the suspension arms it wasn’t to the body which I found out 200m down the road when realised it felt like I was sat in a bowl of jelly. :)

[Steve Kerswell]

a good blacksmith will rework your springs, had mine done on my old Vitesse, never suffered any trouble after.

[Darren (Fl@pper) James]

can’t beat the old skool ways for sure. Cheers 

[Big Vern]

Blacksmith, I though they died out in the 1950's LOL

[Big Vern]

Hi Darren, Triumph added the front roll bar to reduce oversteer and to help limit rear tuck under. I have never really understood why the triumph based duttons had it deleted other than because the original build guide tells you to shorten the front springs by cutting them which has the effect of increasing spring rate so  maybe with the roll bar the understeer became too bad.

If you still have the Triumph swing arm rear then a de-cambering block and removing a leaf or two from the spring usually do the trick.

[Steve Kerswell]

There are at least 3 forges in Plymouth area. All ex yardies, all making a good living. One only makes suits of armour and swords.  I suppose someone has to ??  :-)