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

There has been a lot of talk about the double wishbone front suspension, so I would like to put a few facts straight.
I started at Libra Motive in the early seventies, as the second employee, Dave, the first was going back to the GPO as an engineer. I had a racing and fabrication background. Rob was looking after a few race cars and we built a matching pair of formula 750 cars, as well as Morgan work. We also looked after MMC 11
as it was racing in the production sports championship with Charles or Rob driving.
The first double wishbone incarnation dates to the late seventies with Rob Wells and the modsports Plus 8, built to the RAC blue book rules which stated the concept must be retained. Rob named the car MMC 3 in homage to the works. Morgan sliding pillar front is independant, the method of construction was not specified. We used a stock factory supplied Plus 8 chassis and fabricated a tubular front crosshead using Huron F2 wishbones, steering rack and uprights. Rules stated the gearbox output flange had to remain in the same location, that was to stop anybody moving the engine back. Keeping the Moss box it was not difficult to cut 15" from the bellhousing torque tube moving the engine back, keeping the gearbox in stock location. With Rob driving we won the Modsports championship outright in 1981. There is an article about the car on the Mulfab website, home page and click on the 'history' link. The rule book was rewritten end of the year to state sliding pillar must remain as constructed effectively banning the car. Having had too many offers of jobs I left to start on my own. Rob along with his staff, Terry Foxen and Brian Gateson had to cut apart the chassis front to install sliding pillar. Never as quick and harder work to drive. Renamed MMC 4. The car still exists in Switzerland and is raced occasionally.
We moved to Coventry in '94 working from John Eales premises. He was building a Plus 8 race project which I had the task of finishing. We met Klaus Nesbach
in the Morgan challenge with his Plus 8. He was commuting from North Germany towing a trailer. Always having problems. Offered to take his car back to the workshop, fix it and take it to the next race. All he had to do was turn up and drive. It worked and he won his first race. He did a deal with John Eales to buy his race car and for me to finish the project and run it for the next season. Morgan rules for Class A were a single sheet of paper so were rather ambiguous in the interpretation. Keeping the top crosshead king pin bracket, turned a spherical mounting, fabricated a lower wishbone and converted the sliding pillar to function as a McPherson strut using a coil over as spring damper. That was objected to so just bolted in a solid king pin instead. First race at Thruxton Klaus put it on pole in qualifying. All cars were weighed after practice and we were about 80 kg underweight. Unforeseen. Had to start from the back. Bolted in all the weight we could find. Heavy rain for the race with no wet tyres Klaus finished second. Did all the rounds that year and Klaus won the championship outright breaking most of the lap records. His Cadwell record was just beaten by Keith Ahlers about 10 years later. Then the rules were properly reworked making it impractical so Klaus sold the car. The front was put back to the McPherson front and it now has a new life in Germany as a track day fun car..
About a year later Rob Wells asked me for some help to finish a long drawn out project. He was building a new project Plus 8. Had commissioned Spyder, who make the replacement Lotus Elan chassis to do a similar chassis but to take a Plus 8 body. That came with their double wishbone front end and a fabricated de-dion rear. The only main visual difference was the wheels using 4 stud. And disc brake rear. Looked like Triumph GT6 wishbones and front uprights. Rob lent it to the factory for a week where it had very favorable comments, mainly as to why they could not build cars like that. Still owned by Nigel Sill the last I heard.
I had known Dave Rutherford for many years. We crossed paths at the Mog show at Gaydon in maybe 2005. He had one of his front double wishbone crosshead conversions and was keen to show me. Designed by Alan Staniforth, a name I knew well. He had built a sprint and hill climb car for Mike Sedgewick using the front and fully spaceframed. About a year later he rang me saying he was retiring and asked if I was interested in buying the front crosshead project. It was not of any personal interest so I declined. Couple of months later Rob Wells asked me if I could help him with a race meeting in Portugal as he had to take two cars and look after them. Driving down he was explaining he wanted to build another project Plus 8 with proper suspension. I mentioned about Dave giving up and the front suspension. Rob contacted Dave as soon as he got back and a week later turned up at the workshop with the sample crossmember in hand with the instructions
to 'make those'. With an A4 folder of drawings. Nothing on cad. Kept the geometry the same as I trust Alan. He was well into lightweight using 1.6mm so I went up to 2mm sheet for durability and revised the construction to make life easier. Used the stock stub axles modified to take upper and lower ball joints.
Biggest pain was there are three different widths of crosshead, so three widths of wishbones, jigs and steering racks. All the crossmembers had to be the same width otherwise made problems with steering rack lengths. Bump steer was down to zero deflection.
Made the jigs and Rob had the first to bolt into his chassis. Few months later he delivered the chassis to my workshop with instructions to not use the leaf springs
but design, make and fit 5 link axle location with rocker arm rear suspension and rising rate springing. It drove and rode very well. He kept it for many years.
About 2009 I heard of crashed Mk 1 V6 Roadster, hard frontal. Only had 16K on the clock. Broken the steering rack, bent crosshead. Insurance write off. Went to see it and it was straight from the bulkhead back. Ideal to convert. Got it delivered with the plan to rebuild with the front and rear suspension.
2010 Simon joined so it was an ideal project for him to be involved with. Several years later it was back on the road. I had all the drawings on paper, Simon worked with cad so if ever there was a modification required all the drawings were transferred onto his laptop. made life easier and quicker. In three years it was used for a few demonstrations, otherwise it just sat in the workshop. Would cruise at high speeds straight and true, and go over speed bumps without feeling anything.
Everybody who drove it loved it. Otherwise was rarely driven. Eventually was sold through Williams to Richard Adams near Bristol. He loves it but never really goes anywhere so is thinking of selling.
As to how many? Chas and Bob of Mogsport I believe fitted three in the workshop. A couple went to UK dealers, and we sent one to Belgium, one to Romania and one to America.
There is no way the new Mulfab could economically reproduce these, and I don't believe they would know how to.
About 40 hours labour to fit. All the front body has to be removed and bit of chassis cutting. The kit £2.5k so a bill of £6k adding vat about right.
Finally the original Mike Sedgewick race car was sold and went to Techniques for converting to Morgan challenge, so they had to refit a standard crosshead.
Peter Mulberry

Very interesting Peter, many thanks for posting

Ever so interesting, Peter. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to write this. I knew Richard Adams briefly when he had a 2012 M3W Superdry edition. He had a number of issues with it and did a deal with Williams. They accepted the return of the M3W and he took the Roadster with the special front suspension.

I remember seeing the car at Williams, when I was buying my first Morgan. The front suspension actually worked when driven over bumps....!!!

Peter - many thanks for such a good, readable, knowledgable article.

Arwyn

I had a test drive in this car when it was at Williams, with the intended purchase. Sadly I failed to agree on a deal on my +8. The car drove well except for slight reluctance to self centre.

Thanks for taking the time to write this, I never understood why Morgan didn't introduce a double wishbone front suspension to its traditional. Morgan it would have most likely transformed, the ride, handling and comfort, a weakness of the sliding pillar front suspension setup and made the car far more useable and enjoyable. I often wonder when so many really low mileage trad Morgans come to the second hand market is in part due to the fallings of the suspension system and resultant ride when for many the dream of ownership and the reality then collide.

Great article, Peter. Thank you.

To respond to the comment from Ray, that was the only idiosyncrasy of the car, not uncommon on most trads where you have to unwind the steering out of a corner. I set the front at 6 degrees castor which was our preferred figure on trads. Factory was nominal 4 degrees, sadly variable. Giving her much more would have added steering weight. The problem was with the uprights which were the stock parts modified. That was to avoid additional issues with refitting existing hubs and brakes. The root of the problem was down to what is known as the Ackerman angle. In a perfect world the steering arms needed to move further out probably about an inch or so, maybe a bit more. That would have regained the Ackerman. Unfortunately there was a brake disc in the way.
Looking back ideally it would have been preferred to use the left stub axle on the right, and right stub axle on the left. And fit the rack behind the crosshead. Could have done that on the Roadster as the engine is set back far enough with clearance to do that. Extra work in cutting clearance through the chassis for steering arms would not have been an issue. Rather than try to explain there is plenty on a web search explaining Ackerman with pictures. The Plus 8 engine is much longer and no spare room behind the crosshead and Rob never commented on his prototype so it all stayed as designed. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for giving the history of the Mulfab front wishbone conversion that's fitted to my 2012 Morgan Plus 4, I have to say it works extremely well and I consider it a real stroke of luck that my first Morgan came with this system, especially given the previous owner paid for it

I bought the car in June last year sight unseen at auction, while the description did state it had received some suspension modifications I had no idea what they were. When I got the car home I found the £6,000 bill for a Mulfab front wishbone conversion which was quite a surprise, so I started to investigate what I had and the more I looked into it the more I realised just how rare and special the setup is.

I've only driven one other Morgan that unsurprisingly had the traditional sliding pillar front suspension, so my comparison is very limited, but what I can say is my Morgan deals with potholes, sleeping policemen and rough surfaces extremely well, the car also turns-in wonderfully.

To be honest, the front end is so good it really showed up the rear suspension, so I had Techniques Morgan fit a Panhard rod, lowering blocks, BCC anti-tramp rear springs and a set of Bilstein rear dampers from SSL, as you might imagine the car now handles like a go-kart. Monty is now way more Caterham 7 than traditional chassis Morgan, but it's the ride quality that really impresses, there's also hardly any dive under braking which tells me you got the geometry spot on

Please could you confirm what top & bottom joints were used with the Mulfab front wishbone conversion, at some point I'll be servicing the front end with all new joints but currently it's not clear to me exactly what components were used? I did speak briefly with Simon about this as I'd assumed Jaguar XJ6 joints, but the conversation was inconclusive and Simon who I found to be a lovely guy, has sadly closed his fabrication business so I can't reach him.

I would be very grateful if you could confirm the top and bottom joints you used on my wishbone conversion, it would also be helpful to understand what bushes were used in the wishbones so I can ensure this excellent system is well maintained and always delivering its best for many years to come.

Many thanks, Dave.


NB: I've also sent you a private message in case you do not see the above, or wish to respond privately.


Here's Monty this summer on his way back from the 2023 Le Mans Classic after celebrating 100 years of the world's greatest endurance race, following our return to Old Blighty I've subsequently completed my engine tuning project and Monty's 2.0 Duratec now makes a theoretical 200 plus horsepower at a heady 7,250rpm. The car already handled like it’s on rails, but now also has the performance to match.







Monty looks like a relic from the past, but actually goes like a stabbed rat, and next Sunday he takes his first run up Prescott Hill to show everyone what he's really made of