Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

As promised, pictures of the ugly things. Skinny across the shell with casting marks remaining (stress concentrators and crack propagation points). A couple of sharp edges for stress concentration and failure points in the machining, but you want the rose joint to fail, not the rod. Casting marks at the shell/sphere junction. I mean WTF is with that piece of absolute crap finishing???? An ideal location for grit to deposit creating an environment for accelerated wear. Yes they are smooth, now, but will last barly 3 months so will not make it onto the car. Emergency spares at best.

Glad I got these real cheap!!

post-6392-1130286323.jpg post-6392-1130286385.jpg post-6392-1130286468.jpg

  • Replies 93
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

well, i guess, that demonstrates you get what you pay for.

Quality brands of those style suspension components are much better.

Also as far as replacement rod end's go. you can pay more for teflon ones etc. probably will last longer and be stronger... but yeah, u pay alot more for them than standard ones.

I guess, having a castor rod break on you is much less dangerous than an upper camber arm.

-geoff that tension rod looks shocking. the width of the shell is half the width of the bolt...

I'll post pics of the replacement I got from BIS.

edit. here are pics (different from previous pics, the bearing i had there was wrong thread...)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/merli...ax-replace4.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/merli...ax-replace3.jpg

I have no idea how quality compares, but it's looks heaps better than the ones you posted there...

the castor rods i used, are a cheap brand, but i guess some "cheap" brands are worse than others... The bearing i posted pics of in prevous page, was from the actual supplier of those tension rods, but he sent me a right-handed thread, so couldn't use it.

also a question, the ones I have have a little nipple on them, i think this is for re-lubricating them??? is it a good idea to add more oil/grease to them regularly?

Edited by MerlinTheHapyPig

Yeah it's only the rose joint and $50 is pretty cheap. :D This is the quality of a lot of the dodge product on the market that guys are buying for $200 at a bargain price, and later they will be sorry.

  • 1 month later...

A quick update, due to the problems of heavy wear associated with open sperical bearings in a road environment (ie; water, dust, mud etc) a couple of manufacturers are currently testing sealed spherical bearings. They are also attempting to get them approved for road use.

More news as soon as the testing is completed.

:P cheers :D

  • 2 months later...

One importer submitted product which failed testing and consequently has not gained approval for road use. As soon as I become aware of an approved supplier I will post it up. If you find one please let me know.

;) cheers :)

SK, thanks for the informative thread. The sealed bearings sound promising. I have castor rods with spherical bearings and I have neglected them. I recently greased them and they are feeling much better. I'll be sure to keep a close eye on them and the surround welds in the future.

I have the KTS rods from UAS - do they look ok in terms of strength? here is a pic: http://nismo.com.au/pricelists/kts/ktscastorrod.jpg

  • 1 month later...

I'm buying spherical bearing suspension components for my car, as it will be primarily used for motorsport activities. What is the best way to maintain the spherical bearings ? Can they be greased ? Is there and effective way to shield them from dirt and sand etc ?

Cheers

Paul

I'm buying spherical bearing suspension components for my car, as it will be primarily used for motorsport activities. What is the best way to maintain the spherical bearings ? Can they be greased ? Is there and effective way to shield them from dirt and sand etc ?

Cheers

Paul

Hi Paul, the better brands come with rubber/plastic cups that seal around the through bolt onto the non moving part of the spherical. Plus they have grease nipples. So you can do a grease change without removing them.

:P cheers :rofl:

  • 4 months later...

Just dragging a thread out.

I noticed in my Dad's mini that the suspenion arms use roller bearings in the pivot points and the Yamaha R1 rear swing arm I modified today uses them aswell.

What are the Pro's and Con's of using roller bearings in suspension pivot points??

Edited by dontfeelcold
Just dragging a thread out.

I noticed in my Dad's mini that the suspenion arms use roller bearings in the pivot points and the Yamaha R1 rear swing arm I modified today uses them aswell.

What are the Pro's and Con's of using roller bearings in suspension pivot points??

roller bearings only allow movement in one axis. most suspension systems move in more than one axis, so you will get binding problems - something will break. motorbike swing arms only move in one axis so that's OK, but the mini ia a surprise

what about front upper arms in a 32 GTR? I have a set of arms here that use roller bearings. they do twist in the middle which is nice as with lots of castor the arm would be being pulled forward.

Is the suspension twisting due to the forces being applied to the suspension arms? or is it they way it was meant to work?

I thought that suspension that used a double wishbone setup would not want to be twisting.

So is there anything wrong with using rollerbearings in suspension that move in one plane? Are they better? The mini had them in the inner pivot point of the upper arm.

A few Pro's I can think of.

The arms can be tightned up to the roller bearing inner race when the suspension is at full droop.

They can be mounted either in rubber/polyurethane or mounted straight into the arm.

When mounted straight into the arm they should be quite solid. depending of the condition of the bearing.

Con's (can't think of too many)

Possile excessive wear, but if they are used in street cars they musn't be that bad? I will have to check the ones on the mini.

A hard hit might brea them?

Con's (can't think of too many)

Cons, a quick list;

1. They don’t absorb impact like a bush, so you get increased NVH (noise, vibration and harshness).

2. They don’t absorb impacts like a bush, so you get a higher propensity for cracking around the joint.

3. If they aren’t water proof, they will corrode.

4. If they aren’t greaseable they will wear out quickly.

5. They are expensive to replace, in comparison bushes are cheap.

6. In themselves, they are not adjustable ie; they require other means of adjustment.

7. They have no deformation capability, so any slight misalignment will result in premature wear eg; hit a gutter slightly, tweaking the wheel alignment

8. They are heavier therefore increasing the unsprung weight if used in the outer joints.

With a bit more thought there are probably a few more

:woot: cheers ;)

do'h! that doesn't sound very promising. The ones I have are the dog bone shape upper arms. I'm keen to give them ago anyway. will be sure to post up how they work out.

do'h! that doesn't sound very promising. The ones I have are the dog bone shape upper arms. I'm keen to give them ago anyway. will be sure to post up how they work out.

I removed a set from a very clunky GTR last week. They were cracked due to impact and also seized due to water ingress and corrosion. I will have some pictures shortly to post up.

When fitting them make sure you put them in the right way around. Otherwise you will end up with massive caster and no camber adjustment. Yes I have seen it done, its easy.

:woot: cheers ;)

yes, I'll double check that! thanks for the heads up Gary.

I wonder if you could remove the ball bearings and replace with regular bushes/sleeves? could be an option.

  • 2 months later...

Interesting read this. I actually went to a suspention guy just over a week ago & he reckoned that rose joints wouldn't be too harsh for the road. Reading comments in here though seems to contradict that.

1 other thing he did say too was that the whiteline adjustable bushes rely on the pressure of the bolt head at the end of the tube to hold it in place & he reckoned they were prone to slipping.

I don't know if this is true or not so a few comments & maybe pictures would be appreciated if anyone is willing to prove this wrong/right.

1 other thing he did say too was that the whiteline adjustable bushes rely on the pressure of the bolt head at the end of the tube to hold it in place & he reckoned they were prone to slipping.

Thats only true if there is no lock nut on the end, just add another nut hard against the first one and it would not slip

Yes a locknut would surely help.

Main reason I ask this is that I've also seen other bushes that have a thread through the tube. When you tighten the bolt up, it places pressure on the thread to help lock it in place.

Not sure if there are any disadvantages with this set up however......

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • I know why it happened and I’m embarrassed to say but I was testing the polarity of one of the led bulb to see which side was positive with a 12v battery and that’s when it decided to fry hoping I didn’t damage anything else
    • I came here to note that is a zener diode too base on the info there. Based on that, I'd also be suspicious that replacing it, and it's likely to do the same. A lot of use cases will see it used as either voltage protection, or to create a cheap but relatively stable fixed voltage supply. That would mean it has seen more voltage than it should, and has gone into voltage melt down. If there is something else in the circuit dumping out higher than it should voltages, that needs to be found too. It's quite likely they're trying to use the Zener to limit the voltage that is hitting through to the transistor beside it, so what ever goes to the zener is likely a signal, and they're using the transistor in that circuit to amplify it. Especially as it seems they've also got a capacitor across the zener. Looks like there is meant to be something "noisy" to that zener, and what ever it was, had a melt down. Looking at that picture, it also looks like there's some solder joints that really need redoing, and it might be worth having the whole board properly inspected.  Unfortunately, without being able to stick a multimeter on it, and start tracing it all out, I'm pretty much at a loss now to help. I don't even believe I have a climate control board from an R33 around here to pull apart and see if any of the circuit appears similar to give some ideas.
    • Nah - but you won't find anything on dismantling the seats in any such thing anyway.
    • Could be. Could also be that they sit around broken more. To be fair, you almost never see one driving around. I see more R chassis GTRs than the Renault ones.
    • Yeah. Nah. This is why I said My bold for my double emphasis. We're not talking about cars tuned to the edge of det here. We're talking about normal cars. Flame propagation speed and the amount of energy required to ignite the fuel are not significant factors when running at 1500-4000 rpm, and medium to light loads, like nearly every car on the road (except twin cab utes which are driven at 6k and 100% load all the time). There is no shortage of ignition energy available in any petrol engine. If there was, we'd all be in deep shit. The calorific value, on a volume basis, is significantly different, between 98 and 91, and that turns up immediately in consumption numbers. You can see the signal easily if you control for the other variables well enough, and/or collect enough stats. As to not seeing any benefit - we had a couple of EF and EL Falcons in the company fleet back in the late 90s and early 2000s. The EEC IV ECU in those things was particularly good at adding in timing as soon as knock headroom improved, which typically came from putting in some 95 or 98. The responsiveness and power improved noticeably, and the fuel consumption dropped considerably, just from going to 95. Less delta from there to 98 - almost not noticeable, compared to the big differences seen between 91 and 95. Way back in the day, when supermarkets first started selling fuel from their own stations, I did thousands of km in FNQ in a small Toyota. I can't remember if it was a Starlet or an early Yaris. Anyway - the supermarket servos were bringing in cheap fuel from Indonesia, and the other servos were still using locally refined gear. The fuel consumption was typically at least 5%, often as much as 8% worse on the Indo shit, presumably because they had a lot more oxygenated component in the brew, and were probably barely meeting the octane spec. Around the same time or maybe a bit later (like 25 years ago), I could tell the difference between Shell 98 and BP 98, and typically preferred to only use Shell then because the Skyline ran so much better on it. Years later I found the realtionship between them had swapped, as a consequence of yet more refinery closures. So I've only used BP 98 since. Although, I must say that I could not fault the odd tank of United 98 that I've run. It's probably the same stuff. It is also very important to remember that these findings are often dependent on region. With most of the refineries in Oz now dead, there's less variability in local stuff, and he majority of our fuels are not even refined here any more anyway. It probably depends more on which SE Asian refinery is currently cheapest to operate.
×
×
  • Create New...