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MG Midget and Sprite General - Leaf springs and diff in action

Ok it's not a spridget but it's interesting/scary all the same.
http://youtu.be/tN-4LLAKlpw
Gary & Gaps

woooow! that is cool!

He can't have been going too fast in his racing car, it was weighed down with all sorts of camera equipment.

Malcolm
M Le Chevalier

Thanks Gary... Iam straight in to the garage to check all the torque settings on my rear axle !!

Rob Newt

Really interesting to watch... esp the diff nose rise and fall with torque.

BTW - where are the dampers?

BTW2 - there seems to be some king of lateral link... otherwise I guess we'd see some sideways movemetn too...

A
Anthony Cutler

Yes really interesting, I have done a fair bit of under car camera work, mainly looking at tyre lateral deflection - sometimes its better not to look! ;)

Cheers
S Deakin

The dampers are in the center of the view.
You see a arm to the axle tube and the back of the lever arm is mounted to the white plate

Onno Könemann

gulp loudly.
I've always been more concerned about the push-rods flying up and down and the gearbox internals whizzing round near my soft bits...
David Cox

Am I the only one who thinks it is not scarry?
All I see is suspention doing what it is suppose to.
And I was a little surprised with the lack of sideways movement.
Yes there are big forces concerned but would you expect otherwise?
Onno Könemann

Not scary for me... interesting.

I could feel BRB's rear end squirm around, esp on undulating roads, with 170 lb-ft from the KSeries, say accelerting in 3rd - quite a strange sensation, like the axle's becoming disconnected or turning to rubber. The RTL seems to have fixed the worst of that.

Will take another look and 'find' the dampers!

A
Anthony Cutler

Onno,

For me yes it's scary...

If you ever design or make a suspension component from scratch and you forget something or miscalculate then someone gets hurt.

The first time I saw how much a tyre distorted through Corum / Bomb Hole (Snetterton) on a Race Car then I went back and checked a few things for piece of mind ;)

Cheers

Spencer
S Deakin

Just take in to account the mass speed and lateral G forces and soon you realise the forces are huge!
Especialy if you want some safety margin.

In my time as a sound and light engineer I have hoisted a lot of equipment and riggers have explaned the margins they had to take.
They went up huge amounts when people had to walk under or be hoisted up
Onno Könemann

I'm with Onno on this one.

Very cool video. I'd like to see one of the front end too!

Those leaf springs hold the whole thing in alignment real well. It just goes to show that solid axles and leaf springs do hold the wheels pretty darned effectively. In the '50s, it was the Fords (solid front and rear axles) that handled, and it was the GMs (with their primitive independent front suspensions) that made rather less successful racing cars. Sure, the ride was more comfortable, but the road holding was not as effective. It took quite a lot of study to get the supple ride of an independent suspension to also hold on to the road as well, with some very big lessons learned as late as the '70s and '80s.


Norm "suspension of disbelief" Kerr
Norm Kerr

Perhaps I'll attach my flip camera to the fron or rear suspension when I do my next speit on the 11th of September (if I can find a safe way of attaching it and swithcing it on).
Gary & Gaps

... of course those with us with wire wheels fitted on our cars shouldn't forget what also happens to the spokes under some, er, enthusiastic cornering!
David Cox

What an amazing film. It seems that the axle is hardly located at all! Twisting, bucking around - no wonder they have been abandoned on modern cars. The spinning drive shaft is scary, especially when you consider the four puny bolts that hold it there and transmit all the power.
Mike Howlett

>>I guess if I described some of the procedures my relatives have been a party to would merely result in this reply being edited.

Correct; it's hadly got what could be described as a 'geometry'!

A
Anthony Cutler

Mike H - the 4 bolts on the propshaft joint are clamping, not in shear. It's the friction between the clamped faces of the joint that transmits the power. *I think*.
David Smith

"And I was a little surprised with the lack of sideways movement."

Hmmm I can see quite a lot of sideways movement and a significant amount of tramp as he gets on the power in the corners (witness the engine sounds and the lateral loading of the axle then watch the nearside spring take up the classic s bend as the axle skews into tramp).
Deborah Evans

Yeah
And how much roll steer would that thing have with the spring mounted downhill like that
and the spring is too flat to operate properly as can be seen by it turning inside out with every bit of load put on it.

Tailshaft bolts definatley have a sheer force on them

Willy
William Revit

Wonder what it looks like when someone starts trying :)
Robert (Bob) Midget Turbo

It would be really fscinating to see what it looked like on a typical road rather than an airfield!
Matt1275Bucks

Thanks for posting Gary....informative.

scary amount of movement in the leaves....scary amount of room for 'improvement', with the various bits of additional scaffolding available or manufacturable?


It shows why low profile tyres without additional location are probably/usually/occasionally counter-productive to grip.

as an alternative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_k8VLgijM4&feature=fvsr

I think this guy may have been trying...or ran out of talent?

rob
robnrrugby

Sounded like he didn't quite manage to avoid the barrier judging by the thump at the last split second before it comes to a halt.

Bernie.
b higginson

those are very cool and interesting videos :)

I'm going to have to go and join my tiny camera to the car now. was only a tenner so no huge disaster if I run it over....

the lack of tyre deformation on the porsche is very interesting...

Rob Armstrong

This thread was discussed between 02/09/2011 and 06/09/2011

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