Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Centra Compensator falling apart.....

Hi Kirk,

It came from me following a chat to Mark Evans at MMC last August.

Paul R and I later did some digging on the Centa website and putting 2 & 2 together beleive that the new rollers are a higher spec rubber and a couple of mm longer. They have a higher heat range - the details are on my PC at woirk so I'll try to dig them out in the week.

Paul's idea is to see how to make getting access to the rollers easier than a full engine out.

Do you know from what build date the updated specification was introduced?

As mentioned on previous occasions, these couplings are doing something they're not ideally suited for.

They're predominately used in uni-directional loading at steady speeds. In the Morgan they're subjected to load reversals and varying load conditions.

Stop/start driving and hard acceleration/deceleration will shorten the life compared to gentle driving on longer trips.

Running the engine in a narrow rev band may well help, but the attraction of a big V Twin is surely that it can pull from almost nothing.

No, but they were being supplied as spares by Aug 2017.

I did however get the impression that it was a relatively new change.

I've dug out my research from the Centa site and looking at the spec sheet for some broadly similar looking couplings they have 2 specs for the elastomer (roller) elements.

Centalan with a temp spec of -45c – 100C and HD which is -45C – 130C

So my assumption is that the original rollers were Centalan and the "new spec" will be HD.

Note, this is very much a personal assumption based on a spec sheet for a similar looking coupling and not based on any knowledge or discussion with MMC or Centa

.

THIS V-Twin can not and should not “pull from almost nothing” regardless of the Centa.

+1

Electric motors and V-16 Cadillac’s pull away from almost nothing. The X-wedge, not so much.
My old Moto Guzzi pulled away at low rpms but it had a huge flywheel and was a 90 degree twin.

Test cooling centa casing















test with fan 92 mm 12 watts, later test 92 mm 26 watts.

That's really interesting research you are doing there GLLOQ
Have you been able to measure the temperatures going on with the centa?

I made a hole in the crankcase at the last replacement of rubber barrels (October 2015) to provide a ventilation of the crankcase in hot weather, it will perhaps improve the problem of lifetime of rubber, it may extend the duration of life of the rubber, no temperature measurements before and after the assembly of the fan except
put your hand on the centa casing which seems to me less warm by putting your hand on the casing after one hour of traffic in slow motion.