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Scary Handling

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J

JohnDough

Senior Member
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I drive a 61 bugeye with the following mods:
Front:, anti roll bar - std road size , spring , slightly stiffer, not lowered, normal lever arm shocks, bought new 3.5 years ago
Rear: removed 3 blades to get the car to sit slightly lower, standard lever arm dampers, panhord rod. the rear right feels a bit softer and stands a bit higher than the left.

My problem:
On a recent regularity rally event the handling was just plain horrific on certain section of the road. the surface was very bad with some potholes and serious unevenness. Some parts the the tar hobble between the tires would scrape my sump protector.

At any speed above 50mph the handling was just plain dangerous with the car darting left if the right side hit any of the bad pieces and vice versa , if it hit some bad section on the left it would dart right.


I'm not sure what it is, initially I had bad bump steer but felt it was much better after fitting the stiffer front springs . Some people suggest it could actually be the rear and not the front.

Any suggestion?
 
What sort of tires/pressures?
 
Have you done a Major Suspension Kit yet and upgraded to a set of Peter C's Shocks.This sounds exactly like Bugsy when I got him 12 years ago. Front end was soooooooooo bad that hitting a tar strip would make him change lanes. The biggest wear issue is in the front end with worn out components. A Spridget is sensitive to road grooves as the tires want to follow the grooves and we aren't wide enough to span the grooves. Making updates to the front end and shocks all around will certainly help. It takes a few bucks to do it right but the end result is go cart type handling not the scary to drive feeling.

PS there is a section at the back of the Moss catalog that talks about testing worn out front end components that is a quick test for you to perform.
 
Yep, tire pressure should be first.
I'd suggest about 26 to 30 psi (about 2 bar or 200 kPa).

Then, check the U-bolts that fasten the rear axles to your leaf springs. Look at the bushings in the suspension (both front and rear). Also, excess toe-out or toe-in at the front end.
And inspect front wheel bearings, tie rods and the steering rack (make sure it isn't loose......it happens).
The king pins, threaded pivot pin on the A-arm and upper link can also cause wandering. Jack each front wheel off the ground and shake it at 12 O'clock-6 O'clock.....then 3 O'clock-9 O'clock to spot any excess looseness.

Be sure your front and rear lever shocks are topped up with the correct oil (SAE 20 weight works well, but motorcycle fork oil can be used too). Poor handling on bumpy roads is often caused by poor lever shocks.

Lots of folks have told me that softening the rear springs in a Sprite is helpful.
I have <span style="text-decoration: underline">not</span> found that to be true.
In the case of my race-Spridget and my street-Midget, both have one extra leaf (blade) in the rear spring (I realize your car is 1/4 elliptic as opposed to my 1/2 elliptic cars, but I have found that slightly stiffer in 1/4 elliptic cars is more to my liking as well).
To some degree, this is a matter of personal preference.....I'm just pointing out that I would not have removed any of the leaves (blades) from your rear springs.

If your car sits too high, there is a "wedge" adjustment that will drop the car somewhat.
You can also have the springs "re-arced" so they allow the car to sit lower (this will not change the stiffness).
Many truck repair shops can re-arc springs.

You can actually re-arc the springs "cold" using an anvil and small sledge hammer (one time, when I couldn't find an anvil, I used an old Triumph engine block).

I actually made a fixture to do this. You can see it HERE

G'luck!
 
If you made the rear too low, then you may be hitting the bump stops much too early/often.
 
Hi,

I'm running 185/60 on Miniator wheels, with Toyo tires at 1.9bar front and rear. I increased the rear to 2.3 in the hope it would help but can't say that it did. The front end was completely redone 3 years ago, bushes, kingpins, wheel bearings, shocks. Checked the wheel bearings and there was no play. I did not check the oil in the shocks but I've not seen any oil around the dampers.

On the rear, checked the bearings and also made sure the sideshaft is nice and tight ( I have a 2 piece upgraded side shaft and if the nut is loose you have serious play on the wheel bearing - another story). I had wedges in but removed them to get some extra ride height, the u bolts felt fairly tight, checked them on the last day of the rally. When I took the wedges out I sprayed the leaves with Q20 and I have a feeling that is the reason the right side felt softer than the other. I'll have to check if there is signs of regular bottoming on the bump stops

the car has done 5000 km / 3200 miles since the complete rebuild.

The rally was good fun (bar the bad handling and not able to drive more than 55mph on the bad section), 1100 km (1600 km final total to return home), 3 countries and ended with playtime on longish go-cart track.
 
Was everything fine with your current suspension set up, then this problem start suddenly for no discernable reason?

Or did it start after you reconfigured your rear springs, or put the front stiffer springs on? Doubtful the sway bar is causing it unless it is somehow binding up. You might try reverting backwards one-by-one the changes you have made until (hopefully) the problem goes away.

If you made a bunch of changes all at one time I would undo all of them and start over one-by-one testing each change, with known good alignment and tire pressures consistent.

A panhard rod that is not installed right could screw up the handling too. You didn't install the panhard rod then remove those rear leafs did you?

Just some thoughts.
Dave
 
I did a trip with the stiffer front springs and the car felt better , the bump steer was a lot less. The only change I made and never got around to testing it was the q20 in the rear leafs and the removal of the wedge. I did adjust the panhard to get the axle in the center again.

I'm not sure if I've driven on such bad roads yet, nor have I driven with such a heavy load, i.e. navigator and full boot (spares, tools, clothes and helmets.)

I actually slowed down at just over 60mph as I felt the handling was outright dangerous and the car could bounce into oncoming traffic.
 
I didn't see it mentioned... So... Have you checked the alignment?
My car would bounce all over the road - it had a major amount of toe out - I did a quick alignment (method used is outlined somewhere in this forum) and things much better.
I still need to rebuild the front-end... Maybe this winter.
cd
 
I had the alignment done along time ago and will check the toe out. Looks like the outside edges might scrub a bit
 
You mention bump steer. I don't believe spridgets should have any problems with bump steer unless you have considerable offset in your wheels. I've never enjoyed driving a car with more than just a smidge of offset and believe that may be contributing to your problem.

Kurt.
 
I had bump steer issues on my Midget when I had it LOWERED. I considered moving the rack, but instead I just brought the ride height back up. I was tired of patching the exhaust and getting stuck on speed bumps. Now that it is back to a sane height it is much more enjoyable.
 
My Sprite had down right scary handling when first purchased.
It was twitchy and bumps were lane changers.
It has all new suspension components with tube shocks. Competition springs etc. It is lowered 1 1/2 inches.
The darn thing was eating some expensive tires by wearing the edges too.
Turns out it had toe-OUT. Very slight but toe-out nonetheless.
Set it to 1/16th toe-in and what a difference.
Tracks straight, tires wear evenly and stable as heck at 100mph.
No bump steer and you can even take your hands off the wheel at highway speeds.
Amazing what a difference this made.
Admittedly the hands off test is very brief.
:jester:
The subsequent addition of a panhard rod to the rear and 7/8 anti-sway bar up front has effected the handling but only in a good way.
:devilgrin:
 
Gundy said:
The subsequent addition of a panhard rod to the rear and 7/8 anti-sway bar up front has effected the handling but only in a good way.
:devilgrin:
Click to expand...

I put a Speedwell anti-sway bar on the front of my BE which tamed the massive oversteer and twitchy behavior in sweepers. The flatter cornering is also a confidence builder. I also bought a Speedwell Panhard Rod but I have not yet installed it. Once installed I will do an alignment with just a tad of toe-in.

Gundy, if you don't mind saying: what is your impression of the Panhard Rod? What changes did it make to your cars handling along with the front bar?
Thanks,
Dave
 
61frogeye said:
Gundy said:
The subsequent addition of a panhard rod to the rear and 7/8 anti-sway bar up front has effected the handling but only in a good way.
:devilgrin:
Click to expand...

I put a Speedwell anti-sway bar on the front of my BE which tamed the massive oversteer and twitchy behavior in sweepers. The flatter cornering is also a confidence builder. I also bought a Speedwell Panhard Rod but I have not yet installed it. Once installed I will do an alignment with just a tad of toe-in.

Gundy, if you don't mind saying: what is your impression of the Panhard Rod? What changes did it make to your cars handling along with the front bar?
Thanks,
Dave
Click to expand...

In hard cornering my wider tires would rub on the inside of the tub. Not good. The panhard cured the problem.
Like you I found the car was a bit sensitive to steering input
in corners. The two combined have given me a more neutral
steering when it's hard pressed. Stays pretty planted going in and coming out now.Just feels tighter and flatter without a noticeable increase in ride harshness.
'Course it was pretty stiff to start with.
:wink:
 
Hi guys,

Thanks, I'll first get the alignment checked, next up the dampers front and rear.
 
John,

Peter Caldwell at World Wide Imports is your guy.He rebuilds better than new. NFI just a satisfied customer.

nosimport@mailbag.com

Peter Caldwell
World Wide Auto Parts
2517 Seiferth Rd., Madison, WI 53716
(800) 362-1025 Fax (608) 223-9403
 
As mentioned in an earlier post this summer I lost my right rear lever shock, just plain fell out, I did not know this but before this happened I was all over the road. Put in another lever and also checked the left side and it was about to unbolt itself. I used steel nuts to put both back on properly and tightend them down. This car is unbelieveable now, rides great better control why they worked loose I will never know but it sure changed the handling.

Mark
 
Resurrecting an old thread:

On the way home from the tire place, my Sprite was bouncing like cork over every bump and the rear end was hopping off line on the bigger bumps. I checked the tires, and all four were around 35 psi, which I know is WAY too high for this car. However, checking the British Leyland Workshop Manual, their recommendations are 22 psi front / 24 psi rear for radial tires. Granted, this manual may be a bit dated, but is this good pressure to run, or should I be running a bit higher?
 
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