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Rear suspension
- Thread starter Taz
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aeronca65t
Great Pumpkin
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A lot of racers actually prefer the 1/4 elliptic spings. But they can be harsh.
A swap could be done, but you'd have to do some fabrication...it's not a bolt-in deal.
My guess is that you're shocks are dead. One thing that's really helped my street Spridgets is switching to tube shocks on the rear. Really helps on stutter-bumps in turns.
Or get a brand new set of rear lever shocks (a lot of the rebuilt lever shocks I've seen are pretty sketchy).
A swap could be done, but you'd have to do some fabrication...it's not a bolt-in deal.
My guess is that you're shocks are dead. One thing that's really helped my street Spridgets is switching to tube shocks on the rear. Really helps on stutter-bumps in turns.
Or get a brand new set of rear lever shocks (a lot of the rebuilt lever shocks I've seen are pretty sketchy).
77_MG_Midget
Jedi Trainee
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I thought tube shock conversions where bad things. Motorheadltd has pics on their website https://www.motorheadltd.com/tubeshock.htm showing major damage (mainly lower a-arms that broke) due to this conversion. I had considered doing this myself, but after seeing what can happen, I put it out of my mind.
Anyone had any negative effects from converting to tube shocks?
Anyone had any negative effects from converting to tube shocks?
aeronca65t
Great Pumpkin
Offline
I thought tube shock conversions where bad things. Motorheadltd has pics on their website.....showing major damage.....
We were talking about the rear suspension here. Conversion of the front suspension to tube shocks is an entirely different matter (which I'll comment on below).
Converting the rears is quite simple. There are kits available, but a handy person can do just a good a job through a few hours of creative fabrication. My car, which has been raced on some really horrible surfaces (such as Lime Rock) has had no problem with the tube conversion. I actually took a commercial rear tube conversion off a parts car and I like my homebrew setup better.
As for the front suspension converted to tube shocks, the Motorhead link is an excellent example of one of the cheesy conversion kits avaiable. You'd be better off to stick with a good set of lever dampers. The problem with many of these kits is that they create a twisting load on the A-arm. I built my own conversion setup with a load plate that spreads the load to more of the A-arm. Again, I've had no problems and the car has been used under very rough conditions. A link to my front tube conversion is here:
https://npmccabe.tripod.com/spritetubeshock.htm
Note that I used the same low cost tube shocks front and rear on this car....right now I'm experimenting with Spax adjustables on the front, but they don't seem much better than the $20 units.
Good qualty tube shock conversions can also be gotten at "Peter May Engineering" and "Frontline Spridget" but they are pricey.
Finally, for a street car that is just driven to shows or in an occasional autocross, the lever dampers are fine. Simply flushing the oil out of the dampers and refilling with good quality oil (I like motorcycle fork oil) can make a nice difference. I just did this to my brother's Midget.
Beware of the "rebuilt" lever dampers....some vendors are good and some are awful.
We were talking about the rear suspension here. Conversion of the front suspension to tube shocks is an entirely different matter (which I'll comment on below).
Converting the rears is quite simple. There are kits available, but a handy person can do just a good a job through a few hours of creative fabrication. My car, which has been raced on some really horrible surfaces (such as Lime Rock) has had no problem with the tube conversion. I actually took a commercial rear tube conversion off a parts car and I like my homebrew setup better.
As for the front suspension converted to tube shocks, the Motorhead link is an excellent example of one of the cheesy conversion kits avaiable. You'd be better off to stick with a good set of lever dampers. The problem with many of these kits is that they create a twisting load on the A-arm. I built my own conversion setup with a load plate that spreads the load to more of the A-arm. Again, I've had no problems and the car has been used under very rough conditions. A link to my front tube conversion is here:
https://npmccabe.tripod.com/spritetubeshock.htm
Note that I used the same low cost tube shocks front and rear on this car....right now I'm experimenting with Spax adjustables on the front, but they don't seem much better than the $20 units.
Good qualty tube shock conversions can also be gotten at "Peter May Engineering" and "Frontline Spridget" but they are pricey.
Finally, for a street car that is just driven to shows or in an occasional autocross, the lever dampers are fine. Simply flushing the oil out of the dampers and refilling with good quality oil (I like motorcycle fork oil) can make a nice difference. I just did this to my brother's Midget.
Beware of the "rebuilt" lever dampers....some vendors are good and some are awful.
aeronca65t
Great Pumpkin
Offline
I thought tube shock conversions where bad things. Motorheadltd has pics on their website.....showing major damage.....
We were talking about the rear suspension here. Conversion of the front suspension to tube shocks is an entirely different matter (which I'll comment on below).
Converting the rears is quite simple. There are kits available, but a handy person can do just a good a job through a few hours of creative fabrication. My car, which has been raced on some really horrible surfaces (such as Lime Rock) has had no problem with the tube conversion. I actually took a commercial rear tube conversion off a parts car and I like my homebrew setup better.
As for the front suspension converted to tube shocks, the Motorhead link is an excellent example of one of the cheesy conversion kits available. You'd be better off to stick with a good set of lever dampers. The problem with many of these kits is that they create a twisting load on the A-arm. I built my own conversion setup with a load plate that spreads the load to more of the A-arm. Again, I've had no problems and the car has been used under very rough conditions. A link to my front tube conversion is here:
https://npmccabe.tripod.com/spritetubeshock.htm
Note that I used the same low cost tube shocks front and rear on this car....right now I'm experimenting with Spax adjustables on the front, but they don't seem much better than the $20 units I first used.
Good qualty tube shock conversions can also be gotten at "Peter May Engineering" and "Frontline Spridget" but they are pricey.
Finally, for a street car that is just driven to shows or in an occasional autocross, the lever dampers are fine. Simply flushing the oil out of the dampers and refilling with good quality oil (I like motorcycle fork oil) can make a nice difference. I just did this to my brother's Midget.
Beware of the "rebuilt" lever dampers....some vendors are good and some are awful.
We were talking about the rear suspension here. Conversion of the front suspension to tube shocks is an entirely different matter (which I'll comment on below).
Converting the rears is quite simple. There are kits available, but a handy person can do just a good a job through a few hours of creative fabrication. My car, which has been raced on some really horrible surfaces (such as Lime Rock) has had no problem with the tube conversion. I actually took a commercial rear tube conversion off a parts car and I like my homebrew setup better.
As for the front suspension converted to tube shocks, the Motorhead link is an excellent example of one of the cheesy conversion kits available. You'd be better off to stick with a good set of lever dampers. The problem with many of these kits is that they create a twisting load on the A-arm. I built my own conversion setup with a load plate that spreads the load to more of the A-arm. Again, I've had no problems and the car has been used under very rough conditions. A link to my front tube conversion is here:
https://npmccabe.tripod.com/spritetubeshock.htm
Note that I used the same low cost tube shocks front and rear on this car....right now I'm experimenting with Spax adjustables on the front, but they don't seem much better than the $20 units I first used.
Good qualty tube shock conversions can also be gotten at "Peter May Engineering" and "Frontline Spridget" but they are pricey.
Finally, for a street car that is just driven to shows or in an occasional autocross, the lever dampers are fine. Simply flushing the oil out of the dampers and refilling with good quality oil (I like motorcycle fork oil) can make a nice difference. I just did this to my brother's Midget.
Beware of the "rebuilt" lever dampers....some vendors are good and some are awful.