Top Link Trial Fit

Managed to get another set of top links welded this week so I thought I'd trial fit them on my own car, the plans to get them on to Dave's Vitesse never materialised as he had to prep his Lemon for its MOT.

They certainly give the much needed wheel arch clearance required, the first photo shows how much the wheel sticks out past the wheel arch, had to run the front end fairly high to try and avoid my tyres being shredded.


The next photo is with the new top arms fitted.


With the spring and damper removed I was able to jack the wheel up well into the wheel arch.

This may look close but those are 215 tyres that are being stuffed in.....

I was expecting to have to modify the shock towers on the inner edges to clear the new arms. The attached photo shows the flanges bent back, I will probably end up removing about 5mm of material from the front edge to make sure there is enough clearance.

It didn't all go to plan, the top arms are very close to the spring when the suspension is unloaded, the brass adjuster and inner end of the top ball joint can touch the spring so careful positioning of the spring is required. Not good news as I was hoping these would be a direct replacement.

The following picture shows the car at its normal ride height with 1 degree of negative camber with no lower shims fitted - all clear.

The next photo shows the suspension unloaded, the brass adjuster will touch the spring. It is unlikely it will ever get to this condition while driving but I would have liked a bit more clearance.

I have a couple of options apart from living with it as it is, make the track rod end fit similar to Caterham, they have the top tube threaded and one lock nut on the outside, the down side of this is that you need to split the ball joint to alter the camber.

Or the second, would be to try it with 2 1/4" ID springs, after some very rough measurements were taken, I reckon they are about 3/8" smaller in diameter than the springs I currently have fitted, this should give me the extra clearance I need.

The good news is that Dave's Vitesse is already fitted with 2 1/4" ID springs so we can hopefully check them on his car next week.