Well it went like this....

Driving back from work, went the back way about 20 miles home, having a bit of fun with vrs octy, about 12 miles in at a place called Linton on Ouse front right wheel went down a great big fecking hole, let the octy go and pulled over to check the wheel as it did go bang, wheel looked ok, rim etc so carried on thought I'd got away with.

Carried on with my usual reckless driving style until I got home, the missues had put her shoebox on the drive so I had to put mine on the road while I shifted hers onto the road so I could put mine in the garage.

Anyway walking back to the bruise I thought the front wheel looked a bit pi55ed so had a closer look and the wishbone was hanging off, was just held on by about 5mm worth of plate, thought I'd better push it into the garage rather than risk the extra weight of my slightly build frame, whilst pushing it in the wishbone completely snapped

If I make some more bones they will be 5mm and not 3mm Although I am looking at buying some more to get her back on the road quickly.

So should the bruise have been able to handle that or is she trying to kill me??

Love Rich xx

Large hi res pictures Linky




[Edited on 24/3/11 by RichardK]

In my opinion 3mm plate is / was a bit thin I think its the weight of that new engine thats done it
Should have kept the Pinto

Graham

kin ell,,, think you should buy another lottery ticket this weekend

already posted a comment on the loo-roll thread, is it clear that it was a one off impact that killed that, it looks to me like there has been some fatigue damage,.. any further pictures looking at the damaged edge?

quote:

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Originally posted by HowardB
already posted a comment on the loo-roll thread, is it clear that it was a one off impact that killed that, it looks to me like there has been some fatigue damage,.. any further pictures looking at the damaged edge?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Strontium Dog

Probably the impact caused a stress fracture and the drive home finished it off. Remember he did stop and check it at the time and didn't notice the wheel was not aligned then!

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would be good to see more, if there was already a fatigue crack, then the impact may have assisted the crack to grow, finished off by the last few yards,....

Either way there needs to be some thoughts about re-design, and knowing the failure mode would be helpful

:-)

Bloody hell rich, you are a lucky b'stard.That could have
been very nasty indeed.

The bruise is definately looking after you mate.

Andy

Ouch!

Glad your safe!

Surely a single impact wouldn't have caused that, bent it yes

Ouch thats nasty!

I think 3mm is a little on the thin side and likely it has probably fatigued over time, being finished off by the impact.

I think its a massive shame.

That you should contemplate actually having let a psudo - warm - glowing hatch - especially a skoda whoop your ass then come on here, confessing and trying to cover it up by blaming the Bruise for having a faulty part.

HANG

YOUR

HEAD

IN SHAMMMMMEE!

It was the petrol 200bhp model, does that not count for anything. defo would have had it... in my head anyway...

the plates on the roadster are 5mm looking at that i would have said that even 5mm may have only just survived.

Glad it didn't fail on the move Rich could've been a bit 'awkward'

Personally I think it just goes to show that, like crime, hooliganism doesn't pay

Never mind Richards close encounter.....
HE LET ME HAVE A DRIVE IN IT TODAY!!!!


If you dont like me Rich then just say so

Ha Ha

Thats a good point, you could have weakened it!!!!! Didn't think of that.... See.... would have had that skoda if you hadn't broke my car

Rich

Bruise?

quote:

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Originally posted by MikeRJ
Bruise?

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Shame.. but at least you survived unscathed.
IMO the "champoin' a arm design has Always looked the part of a DIY bodge by someone with surprisingly limited knowledge. Frankly I'm surprised this 'breakage' isn't Epidemic.
Time to do a wee bit of reading on what constitutes a 'clever" arm shock mount setup.
Staniforth and Costin make a decent read on the subject..
Clearly the Champion 'design' isn't worth building IMO..

I'd be interested to see a clearer photo of the whole damaged area once you get it apart but, from looking at the wishbone photos in your gallery, the problem is pretty obvious (in hindsight).

This pic of the finished wishbone:


and this one of the jig (which I assume shows the shape of the mounting plate):


indicate that the balljoint is cantelivered out past the end of the tubes so the plate itself is being asked to act as a spring, flexing through the inside edge of the large hole. Failure was probably inevitable the pothole just brought it on more quickly.

I assume this is the Haynes wishbone design, using a Maxi joint?

As an aside, having been a passenger in a Locost that lost the nut on the bottom drivers side balljoint, which then pulled out of the upright in a 80km/hr corner the loss of control was an awful lot less than you would have expected. I didn't realise it was that bad until the driver pulled over (without incident) and we got out and looked. Admittedly, it was the inside wheel in that corner but, still!!

Anway, glad to hear you survived to tell the tale.

Dominic

I agree with ^ the design would appear to be in cantilever in the wrong place. Perhaps your misfortune will save someone a from a real catastrophe. In fact the damper end mounting looks like another likely candidate for problems as it appears to be mounted onto the "thin" plate rather than the box section.

If it were me I would be looking for a new design, and replacing both sides pdq.

At least Bruise waited until you were home to demonstrate the folly of the design.

:-)

This design isn't where I would personally want to end up if desigining a wishbone.

An unsupported flat plat with no folds in it.

Not cool.

Why you wouldn't have either a screw in balljoint or a rod end bearing in a fully supported housing is beyond me.

If those are professionally made wishbones, I trust the vendor has all their insurances paid up.

What the hell are you lot twisting-on about? Bit of duct tape and a couple of cable-ties and it's good to go. Havn't you noticed, the sun is shining??

I made them as per the Ron Champion book design, however I quite like the mk hoop design. On reflection 5mm > would have been a better choice of material.

Must be plenty knocking around if thats the case and I've not heard of mass failures but I certainly would do them diffently if I was going to make them again.

So if you planning to make book bones maybe re think the material

Cheers

Rich

Book design uses Cortina ball joints which are a substantially different design. However, I have seen a lot of wishbones with a very similar design to yours, though typically using 5mm plate.

quote:

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Originally posted by ashg

quote:

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Originally posted by MikeRJ
Bruise?

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name of his car

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I guess it's called the bruise 'cos it's black and blue!

3mm is definitely too thin, my replacement front wishbones were of a similar design but with 6mm plate.

Very reminiscent of moggy minor trunnions (ask yer grandad). Which would be fine till you parked the car and were just walking past the front of it and the front wheel would fall off, but never heard of them letting go when you were motoring.
Cheers,
Bob

Not to worry boys got it fixed today



More pictures here

Love Rich

xx

I am a composites eng, not a metallurgist but, pics 002 and 003 show what I believe to be fatigue failure on the left hand side of the picture as you look at it.

Welded might get you through the summer,....?

That is not as the original book design, on the original Cortina ball joint there is 4 mounting bolts with 2 in the same place as photo and another 2 inboard of the ball join and at an angle on the mounting plate to match the ball joint plate.In the photo the plate is going to flex between the ball joint and tube ends and eventually break.
The repair may be ok for a while but what about the other wishbone? is that going to break some time soon as well?.
I would make a pair of new wishbones either with Cortina ball joints or the maxi ones and extend the tubes to go past the ball joint centre line.
Paul

quote:

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Originally posted by RichardK
Not to worry boys got it fixed today



More pictures here

Love Rich

xx

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Sorry, but there's so much about that which I don't like.

Look where it fails.

Right where the flat plate first goes from being supported to being unsuppported.
So, right where you need it to be at its strongest, it's at its weakest.

Not good.

It all depends on a bit of 3mm plate which due to the continual suspension travel is always having a bending force being applied to it.
Add to that, a balljoint in good order will always but always have a considerable amount of resistance to articulation.
The minute it doesn't, it's ready for replacement.
The balljoint is continually doing a Uri Geller on the plate with frankly inevitable results.


Considering all that, I just wouldn't be happy with that design at all.

I'm tempting to speak to our structurall engineers about this on monday.
A more obsessive bunch of people you will never find.

I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have signed off on such a design.


Please tread carefully and consider whether you're truly happy about using this wishbone again.

I think that the wish bone is seriously at risk of further failure, the plate will have been hammered back into shape futher weakening it. I would look to having a new one made with a minimum of 5mm plate. You came close to having a near death experience I wouldn't want to chance my luck twice

Richard - I take it your just trying to wind people up with those repair pictures? IMHO you should not drive the car with those wishbones as they are, let alon repaired. They way you've welded them has now created a Heat Affected Zone exactly along the line of flexing. The original welds created such a zone which is what I think caused them to fail in the first place - HAZ and work hardening on a critical component = NOT GOOD.

JC

the haynes design is a fair bit better than those. for a start the plate is 5mm and it has a bend in it just behind the line of the tubes. also the plates have tags that sit into the tubes you then crush the tubes down on to the plate and weld the ends up. the other thing is that the tags that go into the wishbone tubes are on the same line as the bend in the end of the plate but not bent putting them on a different plane.