Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

A ball joint spiltter?

If you want them, the top wishbones need to be adjustable without the need to remove them otherwise they are a pain, IMO.

stevebroad wrote:A ball joint spiltter?

If you want them, the top wishbones need to be adjustable without the need to remove them otherwise they are a pain, IMO.

I was being ironic, hence the smilies!

Steve
Did you ever get your design into production ?
I would buy a set if you had them availiable!
James

Spyder fan wrote:

stevebroad wrote:A ball joint spiltter?

If you want them, the top wishbones need to be adjustable without the need to remove them otherwise they are a pain, IMO.

I was being ironic, hence the smilies!

Gosh, I hadn't realised.................

holywood3645 wrote:Steve
Did you ever get your design into production ?
I would buy a set if you had them availiable!
James

Hi James

Modifications to original design (to clear standard dampers) have been made, but I will not be offering them until I have road tested them. I thought that my car would be running a long time ago and I don't want to have other people testing them for me

Regards

Steve

stevebroad wrote:

holywood3645 wrote:Steve
Did you ever get your design into production ?
I would buy a set if you had them availiable!
James

Hi James

Modifications to original design (to clear standard dampers) have been made, but I will not be offering them until I have road tested them. I thought that my car would be running a long time ago and I don't want to have other people testing them for me

Regards

Steve

Control freak!

For what its worth, I'm using Spyder adjustable wishbones with Spyders adjustable rubber bush set up (rather than rose joints)
They are as fiddly to set up as rose joints but I hope the ride will be sufficiently precise and smoother than rose joints.
I have a set of standard Spyder tubular adjustable front wishbones that I will be selling shortly because I ended up using a non standard length - I know..
Gavin

Are the spyder adjustable front arms the best option here, or are there other options?
Thanks

holywood3645 wrote:Are the spyder adjustable front arms the best option here, or are there other options?
Thanks

I have used the Elan Trikbits adjustable upper arms that use bushes. Nicely made like all of Col Crouchers stuff.

cheers
Rohan

Lots and f hassle and cost if this is for a road car and need to check legality of rod ends on road registered vehicles.
Other options with std top arms, measure settings at desired ride height, work out how far inboard you need to move to get desired camber and then:
1 slot outboard hole for top ball joint
2 machine up offset inner wishbone bushes
3 do reverse with bottom arms as well.

I’ve use option 1 a number of times if ride height drop is for road use. If dramatic drop then 26r arms also adjust angle of top ball joint to avoid it hitting range extents.

Cheers
Vaughan

On the road car I have Spyder billet bush adapters on the top wishbones, making them adjustable for camber at reasonably standard ride height.
As Vaughan says, the top joint binds if you lower them too much without 26R 'bones.

Shoot me down if this is a daft idea. One of the cheapest and easiest parts to change on the Elan is the top ball joint. So what if a supplier could offer a range of ball joints, that have their mounting holes drilled slightly inboard or outboard compared to the standard ball joint? Would that have the effect of altering the camber because you're moving the ball joint either inwards or outwards? I don't know how many different "sizes" would be necessary to do the same thing as a pair of adjustable rose joints at the other end. Or is it not the same thing? As I said, shoot me down if I'm talking a load of tripe.

Mike

smo17003 wrote:Shoot me down if this is a daft idea. One of the cheapest and easiest parts to change on the Elan is the top ball joint. So what if a supplier could offer a range of ball joints, that have their mounting holes drilled slightly inboard or outboard compared to the standard ball joint? Would that have the effect of altering the camber because you're moving the ball joint either inwards or outwards? I don't know how many different "sizes" would be necessary to do the same thing as a pair of adjustable ball joints at the other end. Or is it not the same thing? As I said, shoot me down if I'm talking a load of tripe.

Mike

The only issue I can see with that is that moving the ball joint inboard to bring more negative camber, would move the wheel inboard and with TTR upper wishbones in the 26R set up you already have to bash the top of the wishbone downwards to clear the wheel. This may be less likely to be a problem with the solid plate that others use as the ball joint interface.

Slots in the top outboard wishbones is not ideal in my opinion. TTR did it to a car I own. Over a savage bump on the NC500 I obtained a more dramatic camber on nearside wheel. Admittedly they had too much adjustment. Not my doing.
I set up properly level and used the camber gauge to find the proper postion. Tacked washers and checked again. Then committed to full weld and repaint. Sorted.

miked wrote:Slots in the top outboard wishbones is not ideal in my opinion. TTR did it to a car I own. Over a savage bump on the NC500 I obtained a more dramatic camber on nearside wheel. Admittedly they had too much adjustment. Not my doing.
I set up properly level and used the camber gauge to find the proper postion. Tacked washers and checked again. Then committed to full weld and repaint. Sorted.

I have worried about this without slotted wishbones as the ball joints TTR supply are holed to , if I recall, M8, whilst the wishbones are 1/4", I believe.