Rear mods to fit 13" wheels on sierra striker

[The Knobs]

Never !!! I am taking my car to him this week to fit the cage, looks like somehting else on the list. The list gets bigger and bigger

Top old school engineer Nigel.

[The Knobs]

Looks like I may have a set of as new 15" TD black wheels coming up for sale soon complete with Toyo R888 and less than 1K miles.

Are Caterham 8 spoke wheels all ET24 and does anyone know the weight of them ?

[pkuzan]

Sorry, just had to say something after looking at the pictures of the modified wishbones- nothing to do this 13" wheels.

It would seem that rod end directly under the coil-over is being loaded in bending. Rod ends are not designed to be loaded in a way that tends to bend the threaded shank. This applies an effective shear load across the threads, a mode in which they are not very strong.

I realise that one can fit a rod end that has a shank of a sufficient size to counteract this. However the ones in the picture don't look that big.

Sorry again to hijack the thread.

Paul

[David]

Hi Paul

Had doubts myself. Particularly with the articulation in the front element of the lower wishbone and the bending moment on the rose joint (even though I paid for the highest possible spec joint). Have to say, however, that the set-up lasted a very tough 2009 season without problem.

HTH

David

[MattD]

Hi

I had a fully rose-jointed setup on my live axle Stylus, which I had to modify due to the problem being discussed.

Originally I had all the joints on the 5-link axle as RJs - ie leading & trailing arms + panhard rod.

This is on a road going Stylus, but with modified suspension pick-up points to lower the car all round.
It's about as low as it can go & still deal with the odd speed-bump. Still another inch or so to go for a track-only car.

What actually happened in practice is that in extreme bump (ie pothole) the coilover runs out of travel & goes solid.
As suggested in the previous email - the descent of the fixed length rear upright+car/fuel/driver weight created a shear load on the single 1/2" rod end supporting directly under the rear wheel bearing - effectively guillotining the rod-end in half.

I broke the same passenger side rear RJ twice before taking a proper look at it - once while doing a slow layby U turn, second time at about 40 mph (fortunately travelling in a straight line). Don't want to think about it happening at 70+ in the outside lane of a motorway

To overcome this, I have now changed the problem joint on both sides to the original spec polybush & high tensile shanked bolt.
Problem has gone away & I haven't bent the lower arms so far- but the bottoming out needs to be properly cured.
Longer shocks (in alloy) are on my list of future upgrades !

HTH

Matt

[David]

Never !!! I am taking my car to him this week to fit the cage, looks like somehting else on the list. The list gets bigger and bigger

Top old school engineer Nigel.

Had a look at your car at Nigel's today. Neat piece of kit, and very tidily built

[The Knobs]

Never !!! I am taking my car to him this week to fit the cage, looks like somehting else on the list. The list gets bigger and bigger

Top old school engineer Nigel.

Had a look at your car at Nigel's today. Neat piece of kit, and very tidily built

Hopefully pick it up later this week and start putting together the new engine for it.

Still undecided about the 13" wheel approach, going to get some OZ 15" wheels for now as they are just over 5 Kilos and see how it goes.

[David]

Hopefully pick it up later this week

Excellent Tim -- Nigel will be able to get onto mine

[The Knobs]

Picked it up today in sunshine and had a little look at the Tagarine Sledge before I left, very nice. Talked to Nigel about bespoke rear uprights, wishbones etc. Pity Mel just didnt get him to design some from scratch to accept any size wheel.

[David]

Pity Mel just didnt get him to design some from scratch to accept any size wheel.

I agree. I think the combination of the two would produce a good car. [But I have to say that, as I've got one ].

Sorry you're going forced induction -- your car looks like it could be a great sprinter as is, and, more importantly, would have strengthened the JPSC representation in <1700cc competition.

David