Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Chassis cracks

EViL MOG went into Williams today for a factory recall check on the brake pedal
2 hours later I had a call to say the brake pedal was fine, however they had found two cracks on the chassis and the car has to be returned to The factory for repairs
Has anyone had the same issue.?

There are two crack issues -

A. the inspection is looking at lower stanchion wishbone mount cracks which present themselves on early bolt on brace fitted cars.

There have been many found and to my knowledge Morgan have rectified all found (U.K cars) with a weld on modification.


B. Torsional chassis longitudinal cracks are different and called for either chassis replacement or bolt on brace leading to A. above.

This has been a problem for years
Have a read of:-
http://www.talkmorgan.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/535156/1
http://www.talkmorgan.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/581999/A_message_for_3_Wheeler_owners#Post581999
http://www.talkmorgan.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/582464/1
http://www.talkmorgan.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/604647/1

and while they are looking at your car Pitfield you might get them to check the gas tank
http://www.talkmorgan.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/605086/1

Good luck and trust all is fixed soon....

What year was it built?

The recall is to look at the brake pedal and lower wishbone mounts on pre 2014 cars.
I was the first to report this to MMC mid 2018, they designed and fitted an improved lower wishbone mount on mine and a number of other cars. I have done about 8000 miles since, with no further issues.
This is picture of the crack.

And the updated wishbone mount.

The official recall is only for the brake pedal issue Rog G, that is the one that the letter was sent out for and is listed on the DVSA recall website. Other than the post by MMC on this forum, no mention has been made of the chassis cracking....yet. As with this case, I expect that dealers would look for chassis cracks at the same time when cars are in for brake pedal checks, as they are both applicable to that age of M3W but it should be documented as another recall officially. I suspect there are still many owners, that don't monitor TM or belong to MTWC, who are totally unaware of this potentially dangerous fault with their cars, something that only a proper recall will fix.

+1

Having read this thread, wanted to table a set of points/questions to clarify (in my mind at least) the overall picture on chassis cracks:

Many early M3Ws (inc our very early 2012 model) suffered the “torsional chassis longitudinal cracks

For these early cars this type of cracking was either fixed by a replacement chassis with improved bracing (our experience) or prevented by means of a bolt-in brace.

All more recent cars have the properly braced chassis

A number of cars with the bolt in brace seem to have suffered cracking to the wishbone mount. This has been fixed by welding in an extended web per the second picture in Rog G’s post.

As far as I am aware these wishbone mount cracks have only occurred in cars with the bolt-in brace. Is this the case??

A hypothesis from this would be that the flexing that was fixed by the bolt-in brace set up the potential for the wishbone mount cracks that then show up later. This would link to the recent MMC recall including a chassis inspection being focused on early cars.

Seeing this tread, I went to look at our wishbone mounts on our replacement braced chassis – no cracks but the wishbone mount does not have an extended web.

This for me raises a question as to whether the current production chassis has the extended web or whether this is genuinely not required because the proper bracing renders it unnecessary.

I think it important that the M3W community has a comprehensive understanding of the incidence of chassis cracking in the various versions of the car in order that robust engagement can be maintained with MMC on the topic esp as many of our cars are now accumulating significant years and miles.

As far as I am aware these wishbone mount cracks have only occurred in cars with the bolt-in brace. Is this the case??
All the cars I am aware of that have had this wishbone mount crack were 2012/2013 cars with the bolt in brace.

A hypothesis from this would be that the flexing that was fixed by the bolt-in brace set up the potential for the wishbone mount cracks that then show up later. This would link to the recent MMC recall including a chassis inspection being focused on early cars.
There is no evidence to support this theory, it is only early cars that have been affected.

Seeing this thread, I went to look at our wishbone mounts on our replacement braced chassis – no cracks but the wishbone mount does not have an extended web.
I was told that chassis manufactured post 2014 braced chassis had increased wall thickness in certain areas, I was not told where, negating the need for the extended wishbone mount.

This for me raises a question as to whether the current production chassis has the extended web or whether this is genuinely not required because the proper bracing renders it unnecessary.
The current chassis does not have the extended web, the post 2014 chassis does not seem to have had any issues.

Once again planenut you raise a very valid concern. This particular thread highlights the problem. Paul Pitfield has been a TM member since 2015 and socially interacts with active TM M3W posters on this very subject. This problem has been around since 2014.

Clearly, He didn't know and they didn't tell him.