Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Noisy compensator

Z, thanks for posting these pictures.

I'm going through this in my head trying to visualize the assembly of this amazing bit of pieces. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Okay, I think the rotor will bolt to the under side of the Centa housing with the spline holding the drive side of it on the S&S crank.

So the larger Centa outer hub is bolted to the motor crank and has some possibility to be out of round, off centerline axis and "may" cause some vibration. It looks like you have a new bolt and washer for this purpose.

I see a bolt pattern in the top of the out Centa housing, but cannot see anything in the pictures to bolt there. Maybe if nothing goes there, Centa used this portion of their aluminum mold for another purpose.

The new shaft would go in from the trans side of the adaptor plate between the compensator housing the bell housing of the trans, of course a new bearing with the new parts. The retainer holds in the new bearing.

The Centa inner webbed part will slide onto the long end of the new shaft and probably be retained by the nut and washer.

Of course the rubber logs will be slid into the inner and outer during assembly. But with the amount of pre-load on the rubber logs, it looks like it could be hard to hold and slide all four rubber logs in at the same time.

What I don't see is any means to "couple" the two halves together for alignment purposes. If there is any miss alignment between the comp housing, trans adapter and bell housing, the unit will not be on the same center axis and could cause vibration.

I know it would be very hard to assembly, but maybe if there were like a trans input shaft pilot bearing in the Centa outer housing just above the crank bolt area. This would allow the inner hub and shaft to pilot from the opposite direction.

I would think that's why some have the new vibration and some don't. It will all depend on the alignment on reassembly.

On your current assembly, there is still the BMW type 6-bolt rubber spider that will allow and compensate for "some" out of alignment. I just see no true way to confirm true alignment of the Centa system. Please enlighten me.

Just for grins and giggles Z, how many dollars are laying on the top of your table?

I look forward to your review and pictures of the installation process.

Have a great holiday weekend.

I'm with Zackybilly and Mike on this one. We use Lovejoy couplings on most every drive we have out here and they are built to last. The rubber will degrade over time but I think it would be quite some time before they would need replacing, depending on the load put on them.

That would be $1,400 USD...and I am happy with that. Another dealer quoted more than that for just the compensator alone which did not include rotor, bearings, cir-clips, fasteners, etc.

I'm fixing to ring them up again on P&D for a new Bevel Box.

Z

From your pictures, that seems like a fair price. I would have guessed over $2k.

Were there any instructions or are you left to fend for yourself? I'm sure there's no manual showing placement etc.

I wonder if there has been any new parts catalogs since the two that were posted earlier this year with all the old comp stuff?

Dan,

If interested....How It's Made on the M3W...said its new...if not, I have never seen it. Maybe this is in lieu of a Service Manual.

Thursday night.
http://www.tv.com/shows/how-its-made-dream-cars/morgan-3-wheeler-3043765/

Z

Z, thanks for the heads up. I've got my system programmed already to record it for numerous viewings.

I've seen a few of the Dream Car series and this one should not disappoint at all.

Have a great evening.

Is there a documented compensator failure? Getting noisy yes but failure?

I know many have failed and been replaced, but what does fail mean?

I thought this before, but never thought to say anything.

The way the Harley style compensator is made, even if the spring pack goes south, the ramps should never pass each other and in theory never stop supplying power to the drive system.

But I can see when they get TOO loose that the rattles and torque pulses would be so bad that I too would probably not want to drive the car. But in a pinch it should "never" let one down. If I had 20 or 50 miles to get back home, I would probably drive it home. If I were further away, I may be temped to trailer it back.

The compensator is a problem that usually happens gradually and is not usually a catastrophic failure. I know guys with Harleys that have ridden for months with bad compensators just because they didn't have the money to fix it right away.

I should have waited for others here with first hand issues with their compensators, but I could not stop my fingers from running wild on the keyboard...

Dan,

I believe I read on this forum of a compensator failure that took out the alternator (stator)and subsequently, the rectifier/regulator. That was obviously a little more than a clickety-clack.

The beating effect from a substandard compensator takes its toll on the balance of the drive train. Can't imagine it does anything to help the transmission, u-joints, bevel box or the driver, for that matter.

With that being said, as a compensator "loosens up", where do you draw the line? How much is too much? I can make mine hammer (which doesn't require an extreme amount of skill) or I can make mine reasonably quiet just by my driving technique. At that point, the M3W is dictating how to be driven as opposed to how I want to drive it. Naturally, it's going to make the most racket when there are other people around to hear it. When rolling into a reduced speed area, you still have to keep the RPMs up to keep the compensator pinned. To others, I bet they guess my car is stuck in 3rd gear running those kind of RPMs in a "relaxed" area.

On the bright side, I got an official PDF on the Centa install today. Other than the pulling of the engine, it doesn't look too challenging. No the engine pull wasn't included in the document. I like what I'm seeing on the Centa so far.

Z

Z, all very good points.

How bad is bad, is very subjective.

Thinking about it now, the rotor would be getting tons of shock load pulses with the same affect as an air hammer might do. The magnets are just glued in I believe so you lose a magnet and you could trash the complete motor and crank.

So you're right, don't drive when it's going south, but is it just down to Missouri or all the way to Texas south???

I guess in my mind if it were mine and I took if for a ride and it was clattering to a point I felt obsessive, I would not drive it and have it picked up.

Are you going to document your tear down and re-fit of the Centa drive? I wish I were closer and had the time, I would very much like to help on that project.

It sounds like your M3W is going to dictate a rather soon conversion by the sounds of it.

Good luck with the retro install.