Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Front brake reaction bars

While I was changing my brake hoses to new braided ones, I thought I would investigate the rubbing brake stays a bit more and I think it's a more serious problem than people are suggesting.

I've posted a rather poor photograph I took with my phone showing what is happening.

If you look carefully you can see the lock stop plate attached to the chassis and you can see the polished rub mark where the outer edge of the tyre tread touches on full lock.

You can also clearly see that with the stays fitted the tyre is quite a way from the lock stop plate and that is in fact the tyre sidewall that is in contact with the stay.

The sidewall as a relatively thin and weak part of the tyre and I would much prefer that the tread corner touched the lock stop than have the side wall rubbing on something.

Also, because you can't get as much lock, the sidewall will come into contact more often than the original tread to lock stop contact.

I am almost certain this would cause an MOT fail if it was spotted and might conceivably damage the sidewall. (And might cause an insurance problem if you had an accident caused by a tyre blow out)

I need to get my head round this and decide what to do but I'm sure my car won't be the only one to have this issue.

I've considered fitting an offset plate on top of the spring mount to move the top of the bar inboard but haven't done anything about it yet.......there may not be enough adjustment.

A shorter stay mounted further forward will solve the rubbing problem but the change of angle will reduce the overall effectiveness of the stay.

I think there will still be enough angle to do a good job though.

Thankfully, the top chassis rail flange is in compression so an extra hole shouldn't hurt.

I would think a curved bar of a thicker construction mounted at the same place as the Mulberry bar would be a simple solution to tyre rub?

It would need to be pretty stiff, the main force acting places it under tension when it's doing its job.

Given the cars don't come with them in the first place clearly the forces they'd have to cope with would be manageable by some moderately designed replacement, it's hardly like it'd need to be the size of a scaffold pole

Something for Cain to look at..........

Very true. I get round the rubbing issue by having a pair of Melvyn Rutter's roller stops rather than the rub plates, they can be set a bit further out so the tyre shoulder contacts the roller before the sidewall touches the reaction bar. You lose a bit of lock that way but as it's only a 4/4 the steering is hardly what you'd call heavy.

You could even mount a free moving set of sleeves over the reaction bar that would rotate as the tyre rolls past it.

But I think a curved reinforced bar would be a better solution. Thereby avoiding reducing the wheel lock range and no need for the tyres to come into contact with anything.

I'm with you on this Mark.

Maybe one of our better known aftermarket manufacturers such as Sifab, Mulfab, Wolf, Librands etc could come up with something.

There's a challenge, will anyone be interested and who will get there first.