Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Wow - A message for 3 Wheeler owners from MMC

When the Lancia Beta rusting issue first started, I had a friend with one of the coupés. He had heard rumours and went to ask his local Lancia dealer, where he was told: "squirt a bit of WD40 over it - it will be fine". He solved the problem himself by falling asleep early one morning heading down to a yacht race, when he drove straight over a roundabout on the A27 at around 80 MPH. All four wheels were wiped off and it ground most of the way through the floor pan before it came to a stop. As he said: "well at lest most of the rust is ground off now".

Wilson

That is a pretty sad, yet funny, story! The fellow apparently has a sense of humor and is also very lucky the machine didn't go airborne and land upside down into something real large like a big truck!

Your chassis appears to be a post 2014 one Wilson, looking at the second photo that you have of the steering rack support. The steering rack supports have not changed in production, they may have got that bit right at the start. As it is a post 2014 chassis it should not be prone to cracks in the two known locations that pre 2014 chassis suffer. Your brother cars, being post 2014, will not be subject to chassis inspections or brake pedal box inspections.

Your car, with its "M3W" laser cut pedals, will need the brake pedal inspection. I would suggest you press the whoever to get the mod bracket installed to the brake pedal linkage if there are signs of a weld on the actuating arm or not.

Well now I am confused. Is there a problem with 2015/2016 M3Ws......?

No.

I don't understand why the later chassis don't need modifying. If you look at the photo of the furthest aft "ear" on the wishbone mount on my late chassis, it still attaches with a very small weld, right over where the riser is welded to the lower main tube. On the modification, the "ears" are thicker, longer and welded over a much longer base, which reduces the stress concentration, plus the two ears are now a single "U" shaped structure instead of two separate ears. This whole modification looks a far better arrangement than I have at present. Unless the new chassis are made of considerably thicker tubing of better quality steel, I would have thought I would get the same stress concentration leading to a fatigue fracture at the base of the vertical chassis riser.

Wilson

I think you have the answer to your question. I don't have any documented specification changes to back that up but I suspect it is the case. There have been no reports on TM of chassis cracks on post 2014 specification chassis .....yet. If they are not cracking, then they don't need fixing.

The new is still cracking
But when you ve done one Time the tailoring to the factory you dont want to do it again And you repair it by yourself.

atalante83, are you saying the new chassis are still cracking...?

I think the best answer to this might be for Morgan to offer the heavier new lower wishbone mounts to owners who wanted them FOC or charge a nominal amount. The owners who are concerned about further chassis fractures at the riser/lower main tube junction, could then arrange to have the supplied mounts changed at their expense. In that I really dislike suspension fittings cantilevered out with a butt weld the only retention as the originals are at present, I would almost certainly opt to have this done on my M3W. The roads around where I live in France are quite bumpy and with the Excelsior Competition H vintage racing tyres, I can put rather more suspension load into the wishbone attachment points than with the Avon sidecar tyres. I have already had a near escape with a high speed suspension failure on a race car and I don't want to tempt fate.

Wilson