Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Suspension Dampers

With the very flimsy chassis on these cars I suspect they derive most of their torsional stiffness from the wooden frame, floor and body panels. I bet the wooden frame condition, panel material/fit will all effect torsional stiffness and handling between cars. Even the door fit may well play it's part

AVOs front and rear, with Mulfab springs and steering bearings for me.

You have the only answer that makes any sense. My +4 has never been rebuilt. I am sure the screws are rusty and the glue has
disappeared. I rebuilt a rotten +8 wood frame, replacing all the rotten wood and gluing with epoxy. The wheel hoops were in very poor shape, so I used CPRS (A epoxy) to repair by injecting it into the rot. Further I glued the qtr panels in place with 3M5200 rather than the conventional system. I felt this would stiffen the body tub. Looks like it did. The chassis came from a 2 week old 1998 +8, galvanized. I asked the Owner of "Tudor Restorations" if they glued the wood frame. "NO! We make perfect joints and rely on our craftsmanship". Looks to Me that "Tudor Restorations" has it right.

AVO for me too. Replaced the old Kohnis last year and they made a nice difference. Easier to adjust and fine tune too. Mine came from Tim Ayres.

The wooden frame and the aluminium plates form an open structure which has poor stiffness and Young modulus of wood is very low 10 GPa vs 210 GPa for steel. The linkage with the ladder chassis are not continuous, made by bolts.

Hi Button, having played around with the suspension on my +8, and lowering the car I came to the following conclusions.

1 the chassis flexes a lot and this will be even more with the additional weight off the v8

2 the greater Bhp out the rear causes a lot of rear axle wind up and unsettles the car and can twist the chassis ( why people fit torsion bars)

3 the basic set up IMO is inadequate for the above

Firstly I doubt your glued tub will make much difference, wood bends. The issue I found is that as you get control of the beast with better shock absorbers, springs and set up then the trade off is a stiffer ride. A much lighter +4 is more tolerant effectively due to lower moving mass to affect the chassis and suspension do a better and more tolerant ride is easier to achieve. So IMO you may be chasing the proverbial Holy Grail, it's what is is!

Good luck

The central area of a Morgan is a lower stiffness one due to it being a low point in the structure with far less built in bracing/triangulation. Just think.......the link from front to back is below the door consisting of chassis, rocker/sill, door frame. Closing the door could well help stiffening up!
Compare it to the triangulated chassis of a Caterham. No door so extra steel sections to give a box shape, hence improved stiffness. You step over the side to get into the car.

It is beginning to look like I can't here from there. I am selling the +4-4Str. This will solve two problems; 1. Cut maintenance and 2. Make it difficult to compare the +4 with the +8.