God I know this has been asked before and I did do a search with no luck.

I have to make new wishbones and their much larger than the ones on a 7, I thought I could use a heap of transit ball joints (16 in total) instead of the plastic bushes and weld in threaded sleeves into the ends of the wishbones.

I figure this will let me adjust the whole suspension till it works (since it will be all wrong anyway), I had thought of rose joints but their not cheap and don't seem to last very long on the road. What do you think? Is this -

a) another stupid idea
b) an expensive stupid idea
c) amazingly worth a try

Cheers

[Edited on 30/11/07 by Mr Whippy]

Probably better to make the eyes of the wishbone adjustable and use plastic bushes with correct size crush tubes?

130177142569 these any good of the bay very cheap with sizes. iam gonna use them for a project iam doing at the mo.
adam

As Rusty said, I would go for plastic bushes as they will be quieter (less road noise) and are designed for the job. Are Transit ball joints ok for the different loading & stresses?

Mr Whippy, you are one crazy dude.

Hmm good points, on my 7 rear wishbone the plastic joint is adjustable but it's large and clumsy (hideous) and not something to grace this new car. I just feel the ball joint looks more appropriate.

I think the transit ones are up to the job and I think I'm wasting my time worrying about noise when I'm sitting here...
Rescued attachment me.jpg

I suppose suggesting engineering it properly is out of the question?

It's always worth exploring alternatives, but here's my answers to your questions plus some additional comments:
a) not necessarily a stupid idea - most innovations start life as a stupid idea!
b) Quite cheap to do, I think you can buy the joints for £2 - £3 or maybe cheaper for a job lot!
c) whether it's worth a try I'm not sure, that's got to be your call. How much time have you got and if it fails does it blow you budget to rectify it.

Alternatives you might consider:
1. Rose joints - Mc Gill sell the decent teflon/kevlar lined ones very cheap on ebay.
2. If you stick with the plastic type bushes you could mount the eye tube onto a threaded bar and then into inserts on the end of the tube and use that to get your adjustment. ChrisG's new book uses this for the adjustment on the rear IRS upright top joint. This gets the adjustment without lots of cost. Seem to remember reading that they use similar ones on some 4x4's - Jeeps I think.
3. Also if you are using plastic bushes take a look at Wisbech Engineering - they sell the Eurethane bush halves for £0.55 each. They also sell the Crush & Eye tubes but you can make these yourself to keep the costs down. The eye tubes are exactly the same dimensions as standard steam pipe - 1 1/4" dia I think!

Finally, back to your original idea, Autograss racers have been using Transit or Sherpa Track Rod Ends for the top and bottom joints for years on single seaters with the likes of V8's in the back and you don't see any fall apart except in a very hard coming together! (Although these days most have converted to rose joints). So if they will stand up to use on the outer joints in those conditions I'm sure they would be fine on the inners also.

John W

thanks very much John

I'm very impressed with the Rose joints from Mc Gill.

cheers

[Edited on 1/12/07 by Mr Whippy]

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy
thanks very much John

I'm very impressed with the Rose joints from Mc Gill.

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£25 each, cripes. Which ones are using now RazMan?

A lot of people buy cheap unlined rod ends for £3 or 4 in 1/2" or bronze lined for £10 and they are not really very good. They will not last five minutes on the road.

Quality rod ends are expensive - but will do the job well and last much longer. Mine are still ok after 8k miles so I don't expect to replace them again for a while.

Go for National Rod End TSMX8T for £22.50 ea or for the ultimate in durability NMB ART8ECR would be £56ea.

Drop Nick Skidmore a line to order them if you can't find them.

Unfortunately rod ends will always have a considerably shorter life on a road car than OEM type ball joints simply because there is no mechanism to compensate for wear.

[Edited on 2/12/07 by MikeRJ]