S1 Rebuild(s)

[Dave Adams]

some pics of the rebuild process,

the top trailing arm bracket is broke......

the diff is sloping back a little (looking up) so that will need sorting.......

As you can see there isn't a lot of bracing in an S1 chassis, that will be sorted.

[Dave Adams]

it seems to pull through the rev range much stronger, it also pulls the higher speeds far easier. it doesn't feel like it has more torque it feels less.....but it may have a flatter torque curve, so that might feel less noticeable than a pinto with a peaky curve.

but it is a lot more responsive......and as it climbs the rev range it just pulls harder.

[Dave Adams]

modified triumph wish bone running Maxi ball joints and Ford Cortina uprights.

[Adrian Southgate]

Ball joint or bolts? Are your's still riveted or did you change them?

[Dave Adams]

it has maxi ball joints on the bottom......they bolt on. it was the bolts that failed (high tensile as supplied with kit) i do have cortina ball joints as well i may look into swapping them.

[Steve and Matt Pegrum]

Are you sure the ball joints aren't binding up due to excess travel?

Bolts like that shouldn't just fail but binding could cause it

[Dave Adams]

i also have a bluetooth OBD device, it has the ability to do a timed power run to work out the HP of the car......i will give it a try once i have the car fully sorted.

[Adrian Southgate]

I bought QH ones from ebay (maxi ball joints) as they are not available from my regular suppliers.

[rob saul]

Either you were supplied Chinese copies and your high tensile bolt is about as strong as cheese or the bolts weren't done ip and have chattered loose and failed,bit you haven't done many miles have you ?
The force to shear two bolts that size is bloody high

[James Doulton]

Presumably one bolt failed as you drove onto your drive - you might be able to find the bits to diagnose the failure. It might be worth a few minutes search.

[Dave Adams]

I will be spending a day sorting it tomorrow (Wednesday ) as I am on holiday because the wife's birthday is Thursday and she is 60.....don't look or feel it (I am her toy boy :-) she is 7 years older)....yeah I know...you couldn't tell.

[Pete Clayton]

I presume you're going to check over the other side at the same time? Car looks lovely Dave, if you're at Stoneleigh on the Monday i'll come and say hi and check it out.

[Dave Adams]

I will only be there on the Sunday Pete......

well today i modified the wishbones by adding some extra steel to them and welding it in both sides....turns out that the bolts hadn't failed they had pulled through the wishbone mounts. odd that the off side showed no signs of failing. now fully sorted i hope.  i really tried to get the mounting bolts in the same place, but they weren’t......

so after a test drive i checked the front end geometry and it had changed from 0.15 minutes "toe in" and 1 degree negative camber to .....1.5 degrees "toe out" and 0.5 degrees negative camber on the N/S and 1.5mm negative camber on the O/S.

so an hour adjusting it all back to where it should be and all is fine again.

the car drives even better than it did before the "incident" the squirmy handling has gone so i suspect that the bolts might not have been as tight as they could have been from day one.