1inch Ground Clearance

[Guest ant.b]

hi all

after my first drive in my 2b to the mot station ,all went well apart from the hoop on the bottom of chassis scraping the road allthe time i knew my ground clearance was low ,but not this bad,have mesured it once home and it is just over one inch at the hoop and 5inch at the bottom of the square box section at front,what can i do to improve this, have took some pics anybody see anythin i done wrong,apart from that it passed and was great to drive in the pouring rain as swell

..

pic1

pic2

pic3

pic4

[Joel]

You could try moving your lower shock mounts as far back (toward the car) as you can on the bottom wishbone plate, and wind the shocks up a bit more.

 

When you look at the car front-on, your wishbones should be about horizontal, it looks in the second picture like they're sloping up quite a bit.

[Les Welsher]

Ant,

looking at your second pic, you need to move the coilover bottom mounting bracket further inward on the wishbone plate. Drill one more hole in the plate near the curved bit so your existing inside bolt hole becomes your outside bolt hole and the new hole becomes the inside one. This will make the coilover more upright and raise the front of the car. Final adjustment can be made by moving the nuts on the thread on the bottom of the coilover. Doing this will alter the camber on the front wheels so when the ride hight is set the camber will need adjusting.

 

Les

[Guest Fred2b]

Ant

Looking at picture 3 I am not sure if I am looking at it wrong but the highest point on the dummy strut should be on the outer edge nearest to the tyre. You seem to have it set to either the front or rear. I think this angled top is to allow the front wishbones to remain parallel throughout the up and down travel and thus keep the camber the same. Whatever it's for it is important because when I got mine RHSC recalled them to be replaced with ones with a bigger angle. It may effect the ride height, not sure.

With the bottom coil over fixing being where you have it, surely the spring contacts the upper wishbone when jacked up? If so that is an MOT and SVA failure. You need to move it closer to the car body as the previous post suggests.

I have just measured my 2B from ground to underside of the 2" box section at the front is 6.75" with the wishbones parallel to the ground and the coil overs showing about 1" of thread below the nuts and 17 pounds in the tyres.

It also looks like your sump guard may be a bit low. If the above does not help you could try jacking up the car and letting it down slowly onto a couple of bricks and hope the weight will bend it up a bit. ( Do this at your own risk - it's only a suggestion and I accept no responsibility but if it was me I would try it - carefully!!)

Regards

Pete

[Guest ant.b]

hi all

have been experimenting with pass side wishbone set up etc ,have wound up the spring on the coilover and moved it closer to the front infill panel this does help with clearance but my wheel now tips out at the top so i need to wind in the top ball joint but there is no more play in the top ball joint unless i pull the dummy strut further out of the hub and it is not long enough to do that ,the dummy struts i fitted as per video with no taper facing the tyre and the highest part of taper facing the top coilover mount, this does give the most adjustment with it facing the opposite way i cant even get the angle to fit it in the hub ,so i presume i have it right?if the top ball joint has no more play in it this would allso fail sva?and make steering jam when jacked up in air,any more ideas ?

thanks ant.

[Joel]

This might be nothing but have you put something between the Hub and the cycle wing bracket?

 

I'm probably mistaken (it's been a while since I did that bit), but I don't recognise that part - it looks like you have a spacer or something in there.

 

If it is something, it could explain your problem - you will have changed the way the uneaqual length wishbones travel through their range of movement, which could be why you've got no adjustment left on your top ball joint

 

...or perhaps I'm just talking b*******

[Guest ant.b]

hi joel

you are correct i did fit a spacer to make the cycle wing bkt clear the front flexi brake pipes(the thick rubber part was rubbing on the bkt) but even if i took this out and put the strut all the way in it would still make the adjustment problem worse ,i will try some more tomorrow and see what happens, if you have a pic of yours that would be great,..

thanks ant

[Guest michael]

hi ant like others said move bottom shock mount in although my 2b mounts are further to the wheel than yours maybe the springs are to soft.Also the a guy in east anglia cut his hoop off near the engine mounts and he says it causes no problems.....mike.

[Guest Battery Bill]

Hi mike

Also the a guy in east anglia cut his hoop off near the engine mounts and he says it causes no problems

Do you know who in E Anglia did this and has anyone else done / thought about this ?

I seem to remember in a drunken conversation with Big Jim we discussed making it less of a hoop and more of a straight across ( But maybee I had had too much to drink and am talking *bleep*s) But anyway we intend making ours straighter so fingers crossed its ok

[Big Jim]

I seem to remember in a drunken conversation with Big Jim we discussed making it less of a hoop and more of a straight across ( But maybee I had had too much to drink and am talking *bleep*s)

do you know, I also remember that discussion! (we obviously didn't have enough to drink)

Anyway, for my 2 pence worth, I think that the 2B chassis is a very strong piece of kit, and would easily 'perform' with this tube 'altered' I would remove it, then fix a piece of angle or tube to go across the bottom of the chassis in a better position.

 

As an aside, one of our lads (Tango, or commonly known up here as Marmite) is fitting a Suzuki 1300cc twin cam into a 2B, and this hoop is completely in the wrong place, so he's 'nicked' the tubes (cut 'V's into the top of them) bent the front of the tube upwards, and then welded up the 'nicks' The problem is you need the engine in to see where & how much to cut, but then it has to come out so that you can get at them to weld them up again!

[Guest Fred2b]

I have also thought about cutting out the tube. It does seem to stick down more than necessary, but the problem is the sump also sticks down quite a way so you really need some sort of protection. At the most I would be tempted to first bolt on a good sized piece of angle iron straight across and then cut off the tube. If the holes don't line up again properly when you take it off you know the chassis has buckled a bit but i doubt it, as Jim says it is a good strong chassis.

Pete

[Guest TerryBarry]

I have wondered about that tube.

What would happen if you ran into a raised drain cover - the centre of the chassis would stop dead.

I have considered putting a skid plate from the front of the chassis to that tube - or course, this would decrease the ground clearance slightly.

Still - I have a while to consider the problem

Terry

[Guest bloke]

terry, me too!!!

 

if this tube moved so would the engine mount plates...

[Guest michael]

Hi mike

 

Do you know who in E Anglia did this and has anyone else done / thought about this ?

I seem to remember in a drunken conversation with Big Jim we discussed making it less of a hoop and more of a straight across ( But maybee I had had too much to drink and am talking *bleep*s) But anyway we intend making ours straighter so fingers crossed its ok

the guy who cut off his hoop name is gerry i think i would beleive his word he.s old school engineer type speaks alot of sense..piddy might know who he is,,,,,,mike.

[Guest ant.b]

hi all

thanks for replys ,have messin about with coilovers etc ,and moved coilover as far in toward car as i can get it ,and wound up spring now wont go any further ,adjusted camber to suit and tried on ground ,this has improved it , so when ive done the driver side aswell should be ok? just not sure about why my car is like this and other are not all the sites i have looked at are in similar position to what mine were,and springs not wound up as much, could it be my springs not stiff enough ,have put a pic in my gallery 4 to check

thanks ant