Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing The aftermath of Canterbury.................

Apart from making the bracket from thicker material, there is nothing you can do about the lack of material between the hole and the inner edge.

Poor design all round.
The mounting lug for damper bottom will cause twisting which seems to have caused the fractures. The first photos obviously have insufficient metal to give strength.
The second photo shows the effect of the twisting and the reinforcement needs to be moved to beef it up.The bent over ends will not solve this as they do not strengthen the bracket in the right place.
The welding may also cause heat affected zones weakening the metal.

Just saw Jays photo - looks to be well welded.
I agree that thicker metal seems the early route to try.
I am surprised that the ride after the fractute was not drastically altered, but then.... leaf springs are substantial so influence of the damper is minimal?

I wonder how many do actually fail though? It's the first I've come across that have been mentioned. Unless there's a load of unsuspecting drivers happily motoring about having forgotten all about that initial "clunk"!

Great pic Jays!

With the negligible effect on ride/handling I suppose it will only be noticed at a service.
Mind you..... how many people do a proper check when a "clunk" is heard? Albeit when they get home?
Getting under the car regularly is a good idea when greasing etc as you can do a visual while under there. One reason I haven't gone for remote greasing, but then I haven't done any LONG continental tours yet!

As others.. great Pic Jay.. is this posted on Morgantica as very useful!

In fact perhaps all the info regarding the bracket should be posted.

I've not published it anywhere else. Every time I go to the factory I try to build up my collection of photos for useful reference!

The original Rutherford Engineering kit as fitted to Woodstock use a new lower spring plate as the wheel end shock absorber mount. Plenty of metal there and I'd be very surprised if anyone has ever broken one.

The factory one is dreadful and I can see the stresses that will have lead to this problem. Apart from using a very superior metal for the plate, no real answer and from a design/engineering point of view, dreadful on several scores.

I don't "rag it" very often, and I doubt it's caused by damper resistance, because the bend is away from the backplate. Having given it some thought I think it's more likely due to axle wind up when accelerating hard. Without anti-tramp bars the lower bracket will resist axle rotation once the slack in the bush is taken up, and a bump in the road will really put a heavy shock through it. The picture of the one which has split vertically seems to support this theory. I might consider a Mulfab anti-tramp set up........