I've followed this topic with interest as I want to replace the king pins etc on my '93 +4. Obviously hard chrome is the way to go. At the same time it would make sense to upgrade the rest of the front suspension and the pros & cons of Suplex & Mulberry have been well aired on this forum but I've found little, if anything, on the Rutherford upgrade. Does anyone have experience of this? Is it now considered 'old hat' being superceded by the above?
Any info gratefully received.
Brian
David Rutherford was making rear suspension kits for Morgans fitted with Armstrong lever arm dampers and producing negative camber and panhard rod kits from the mid 1970s. In the. late 1980s he was making a replacement rear suspension hoop as an alternative to the Morgan one that was poorly designed and contacted with the diff casing on compression.
For a few years, David used my car as a race development car modifying the chassis, putting in a quick rack and other useful mods. I'm running some axial bearings that David gave me to try in the early 1990s and they're still on the car. I've run the car with the bearings fitted both with and without the damper blades and quite frankly I haven't noticed the difference; it's probably due to the front suspension being properly maintained.
I'm not convinced about fitting front steering bearing kits that incorporate ride height adjustment. The vast majority of people, including Morgan dealers, have insufficient understanding of such set up and the impact on corner weights. Having said this, Morgans are too crude in their chassis and suspension design to warrant such sophisication as anyone who has set up single seater race cars will know.
As for steering dampers, these are merely a mask that hide a fundamental fault in a car's behaviour. Wheel wobble is more likely to be caused by poor maintenance, loose or broken components or deranged geometry caused by an 'off'.
