Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Workshop Note - Bump Stop assists

Hopefully the pictures explain and show that the inner wing cut out was still on the slope where it sits above the axle. I noted brake pipe contact but thankfully only superficially. Moved the pipe to the other side of the breather to further protect it as well as relieving the plywood.

Ah, so the axles is further back, not further forward. Very interesting, thanks for posting!.

Interesting that as my set up has no “bump” stop within the dampers, but does have a “bump” stop within the dust cover inside the coil springs on the front.
The contact point on the rear was where the springs go aft through the wooden frame. This occurred prior to the diff hitting the bump stop on the rear hoop.

And thank YOU for your courteous reply!



That is likely my fault. Every time a Morgan owner is confused or unsure, they have a habit of contacting GoMoG. I have been withdrawing for the last 10+ years and eMog left me exhausted. The people contacting me all have cars where they bottom out I didn't realize that they were design to mitigate another very severe problem. No car should do that frequently..especially when new or newish (>20 years old). My new Morgan leaf springs were replaced 3 times in two years. There has been nothing consistently reliable and fit by the factory that has been better.



Good!



How do they assist the springs?



I too have never bottomed out on that either in my current.. But my first +8 (a 1984) with sagged springs, would smash into it (it had no rubber pad in those days) with a CRASH. As a matter of act, I don't bottom out more than once a year in extreme circumstances. I am using the suspension "hoop" with Rutherford Avos, high end tyres and and the old 5-leafs springs last used on Plus 8s in the late 1980s. (I find the old leafs brutal and prefer spending my mogging on the road rather than bouncing above it!)

Why we would anything more be necessary is one has a comfy ride and acceptable VERY rare bottoming out. What is the difference between my older sprjngs and your (and my three b*m sets) of newer springs in the last 15+ years?

So this is where we part. I look to what is different between our cars. You assume that all is well with new parts from the Factory..an assumption I know to be wrong, especially in this area. Morgan trads are NOT a sophisticated piece of machinery, THAT IS THE JOY OF THEM. Technology had not yet advanced enough for table, graphs and formulas when they were designed. Common sense and experience was the foundation. Every flexing frame produces a different feel. (I tested that theory by fitting identical components to scores of Plus 8s and getting a different feel for each.) For that matter, Rick Bourne once assured me that only 1in5 new trads arrived properly balanced and aligned.

But we live in a one-size-fits-all world now. We are trained to think that way. It is hard to think out of that box. Trust me. No two trads are alike.

As a ready rule though, anything that unnecessarily shortens suspension travel must be looked at with great suspicion (considering their similarity in spelling, maybe the words are related!) Common sense and a will to fix it is all someone like YOU needs. if I can have a wonderful Morgan suspension without the need for add ons in 19 years, you can too. You obviously have the brains and the skills to fashion what you have. BTW, I have the lengths and spring rates somewheres. Maybe you can work on a source locally.

Forgive Tim Harris. He has acted with great hostility towards myself and GoMoG for years. I have no idea why and no one else in that old crowd can figure it out. Deep waters. I will not reply to him for the sake of harmony. Nothing to be gained.

Lorne

Lorne, Good to see you here. I very much appreciated your input when I went through my own sagging spring and non-compliance issues with Morgan

Thank you for your words OZ. I recall that I think..though it was 1000s of questions ago... a new Morgan at the time right? Those were busy years with all those suspect leaf springs. As noted, I was hit as well. I guess people since merely suffer the degraded ride. The oldest curse of Morgan owners is "THEY ALL DO THAT'. (sad sigh) Imagine how hard a ride must be to compensate for faulty leaf springs and the deterioration of rear ride height. Not much clearance at the back to start with!

It is fascinating to see the solutions people are coming up with. I am infinitely pleased at ANY attempt to sort these cars, wrong or right. I am a fan of Roger sight unseen.

BTW, did those new springs stay up? Be an illuminating lesson to speak to the ride difference between faulty new leaf springs and ones that do the job. And what happened to your bottoming out?

Lorne (who also spends much of his year south of the equator now)

You know exactly why we fell out, Lorne. It was 2009, the year of the centenary celebrations, and also the year of my 50th birthday. I had organised a party. As you well know eMog in those days was a closed discussion group, open only to those who applied to join. Unlike TM, it wasn't visible to guests. I extended an invitation to eMoggers who were attending the centenary at Cheltenham to come to the party.

You then took it upon yourself, without reference to me, to advertise the party on Mogwire, a website that you ran which was completely open for anyone in the world to see.

When I remonstrated with you on eMog to remove it, your response was to blame me and get one of your fellow moderators to also write critical emails to me.

As a result I left eMog.

If you include calling you out for patronising people whom you don't know as acting with 'great hostility' then yes, I have done that and will continue to do so. Your assumption that you know better than everyone else is pretty offensive.

Craig, I had exactly the same issues with my brand new 2011 4/4

It was indeed many posts ago Lorn. My 2011 4/4 had a 35 mm sag to the driver's side from new. It took two years, the involvement of our Federal motoring authorities, and three attempts by Morgan to fix the spring issue. The replacement 4 seater springs finally did the trick and the last time I looked, had not sagged again.
Your input and counsel at the time was invaluable....

I consider Rog's spring assists as a complementary item to the leaf springs, improving their characteristic on the end of compression.

I see parallels to the original Mini rubber suspension, actual Citroen passive hydraulic cushions or all the accessories with similar function, available on the market.

Many cars I possessed had similar rubber bump stops as a standard equipment by factory (despite of the shock absorber integrated solutions).

The argument of shortening the axle suspension travel might be more critical with Morgan than with other cars. However, slightly shorter suspension travel with "soft end" is probably the better alternative than a longer one with a "hard hit end".
Another question is, do Rog's spring assists really significantly shorten the suspension travel?