Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Steering kickback

A quick update. I have now had the chance to speak to the factory, and they quite catagorically stated that it is a case of TADTS (They All Do That Sir), and I can quite see why this should be so.

Because the steering rack has to run across on top of the Bell housing, or, in fact, the cush drive housing, it sits about 2" too high, with the result that the Track rods have to drop down to attach to the steering arms. The result of this is that when the wheel hits a bump and is compressed, the direction that the wheel faces actually changes. This can easily be seen if a person stands on the chassis in front and below the engine and bounces up and down. The front wheels actually move in and out - this is classic Bump Steer, which is more or less what we are getting. The result is normally that the car will dart around from left to right on bumpy roads. When the road is smooth, this will not happen of course.

Sadly, there is no fix for this, although if enough people start complaining they may have to sort it out eventually. I'm surprised at the complacency shown by the factory, it appears they haven't even tried a steering damper yet.

It is looking more and more like I will have to buy or borrow a little GoPro camera to show how badly the wheel shakes, and post it on You Tube, because many people just do not believe this is an issue. [Charlie - I will alert you when I do]

I will also have to try and drive a few other M3W's to compare them.

Still, on the positive side, my dealer commented that my car had the quietest bevel box he had ever heard.

The Liberty Motors Ace has a different steering set-up with the steering rack in front of the engine in exactly the right height. I once asked Pete Larsen about steering kickback and he assured me that the Ace does not have any bump steer problem.

Harald

Steering arms should be close to horizontal to minimise bump steer. This was why the trad geometry changed around 2006/7, and why the first owner of my Roadster had some stern words with MMC in order to get upgraded stub axles. He was very unhappy with the bump steer on this 2005 Roadster. So it was fitted with the new stubs but he had to pay.

From this photo, it seems that it should be possible to modify the stub axles so that the steering arms become more horizontal. Mulberry Fabrications does this for Trads.

Harald

When the front dampers were replaced on my car it made a step change improvement. I still get back kickback on severe bumps but it is now a rare occurence rather than something that I'm fighting all of the time. I now dont notice it for 99% of the time whereas before I couldnt fail but notice it all of the time, to the point where the car was almost undrivable. There is definitely variability - I drove the demo car at Allon White and it was in a different league to my car.

I'd strongly recommend doing a back to back with another car and try having the dampers swapped. Interestingly when the "problem dampers" were taken off my car and fitted to the demo car it still remained acceptable which suggest a vehicle and a damper variability issue...

The factory mentioned your car Simmo. Apparently they had a bad batch of dampers that didn't slide, and yours was one of them, but very interesting that your original dampers didn't give the same problem on the demo car. I may very well push hard to have my dampers replaced on a try it and see basis.

Paul, I'd definitely pursue it - my car has been transformed from a kickback perspective and my car first went on the road at the same time as yours (1st June), so build dates/Damper batch may well be the same!!

Simmo,Paul. Not sure whether this is relevant, but I picked up my car 3rd week in May.

Just wondering what quantity of the possible sub standard dampers have been fitted to M3W's and during which productions weeks ??

According to Mike Baldwin, the factory service manager, it wasn't so much a batch of dampers as some, which had slightly bent rods, in fact he said it was only one car, which was probably Simmos.

I think that for peace of mind, and to eliminate the idea that the dampers could be at fault, it would be a good idea to have another pair of dampers to try, if the fault still persists, then we'll look elsewhere.

However, it seems that not all cars have the problem, and if they do some are worse than others, much worse. If the press had driven mine, they most certainly would have commented on the steering, it's that bad. There hasn't been one comment, so either they did all their motoring on smooth roads, or the cars they tried did not have the problem.

I want to try and drive a few different cars now, so that I can get a feel of what the others are like, before I go back to the factory for another set of dampers.

Reading all these posts made me suddenly remember that my 1936 M3W had a Morgan sprung steering wheel!! YES, it was like a miniature leaf spring arrangement, if I remember correctly.

Maybe this would not help the kickback problem though because that is a side to side thing. However, I really cannot remember having any discomfort at the steering wheel, once I had mastered the hand throttle, etc!!