Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Front suspension

The trick in refitting the main spring is 50% confidence and 50% brute force ;-). Several in here have seen me do it when refurbishing their kingpins and may up the brute %....... ;-).

Technique I use is hard to explain, but, make sure stub is sitting as low as it can in the lower crosshead ‘eye’ yoke. Fit steering bearing and spring on top of stub flange (smear of grease either end coil of spring face helps stop creaks for a while) now hold the spring with one hand in the middle and the flat of your other hand against the side of the spring at the top.

Big breath, lots of confidence and pull the ‘centre’ hand towards you whilst you push the ‘upper’ hand forward. Imagine trying to banana the spring.

This will lower the front upper edge of the spring a fraction so it tucks under the top yoke of the crosshead.

Tap the spring across and into place with a mallet and pop a medium screwdriver down the rough top bolt hole just as a security measure.

Breath out!

Works every time, well it did for me in over 30 cars case so nigh on 70 springs fitted this way ;-).

As Phil R famously said “how did you do that?”..... maybe more brute than I thought 🤣🤣🤣

BR
Colin

An interesting side benefit of the SSL front suspension is that it has adjustable spring seats so you can release most of the spring pressure and then adjust it to suit after fitting.

Adjusting the spring seats is a slow process but makes it very easy to dismantle and re-install.

EDIT

Of course don’t forget to pop the dust cover with the bump stop in the top of the spring. Forgot to add that!

Great explanation and tips Colin. Thanks

Installing the SSL front suspension refinement kit needs less compression of the main spring due to the compression adjuster device. The kit includes the suspension bearings.

Bob, I know you installed the SSL yourself. Did it make a noticeable improvement to the front suspension. Mine is getting right on my thruppenies. Sorry for the thread drift.

Exactly this I will know soon. (sounds like Yoda is typing!)

Like I wrote above, my front is currently much better than when I first bought the car two years ago. I’m hoping to get some more use out of the car before switching to the SSL kit I already have in the garage. I’ll then be in a position to make a direct (if still subjective) comparison between the upgraded standard setup and the SSL kit. I’m interested to find out if the SSL gives as much improvement of my current setup as the current setup did over a worn out standard setup.

Gary

A very definite yes.

I changed my old 4/4 to SSL after I'd had the car for a few months and my wife was finding it very waring on longer journeys because of the harshness of the front end. You literally could feel every road imperfection and manhole covers felt like potholes.

She noticed an immediate and very significant improvement to the point where it is no longer a topic of conversation.

You do need to check the setup after a few thousand miles to re-adjust the rebound spring clearance.

I fitted the kit with adjustable Spax dampers front and rear and with a bit of experimentation, I found a sweet spot between comfort and handling that was acceptable to both my wife's comfort requirements and my sporty aspirations,

I do appreciate that others might have had different experiences but for me it's an unequivocal YES.

I'm toying with the idea of doing a full Roadster upgrade next winter, because I'm very much attracted to the big engineering jobs, and there are not many left to do. My Plus 4 is fine as it is, and although my Roadster is very enjoyable, and I never get complaints, the five link rear end is a job worth tackling in terms of satisfaction.

I fitted a front SSL kit to my '94 +8 a few months ago which was quite straightforward. It abolished the nodding dog which was my main concern. In addition it lightened the steering considerably due to the steering bearing, no St Malvern's Dance and much smoother over rough road surfaces. A definite improvement. 🤗