Mounting up an A frame.

[Slunnie]

As some of you may know, I'm modding a 100" IIa SWB.

Sundays jpb is to manufacture a X-member to go in which will have a Rover A-frame mounted onto it and then welded to the chassis.

Regarding this, I've noticed that when the A-Frame is laying on the ground, upsidedown, the chassis mounting flanges are flat on the ground. As soon as I move the A-Frame to lift it, while it rotates in the chasssi bushes the flanges are forced to rotate away from the flat plane. Admittedly it does have rubber bushes, but is this normal and cause a lot of binding as the suspension lifts and drops, and if this is correct, then do the plates or X-members fail? It just all looks a bit dodgy to me.

[justinC]

This is Normal, and no they usually last a long time. The most common failure for these are the bushes themselves if the bolts aren't kept tight. The centre tube of the bush gets worn too thin to be crushed between the brackets, and can never then be tightened. Worse case is the cast brackets themselves wear out, and require replacement to prevent bushes from moving around. The RRC from 1990 and all Discos use very thin plate'ears' welded to the tubular crossmember, which definately look weak, though I haven't managed to wreck mine yet, and I've never had to repair any yet. ( Just ask Callum B what he thinks about my vehicle and how it gets used...).

If the bolts through the bushes are tightened while the vehicle is at rest then the bushes should last a long time. In short, the amount of vertical movement in the A frame is well within the capabilities of the bushes, so don't worry.

JC

[Slunnie]

Gday JC, thanks for this and it makes sense. Just seems a really strange way of doing it apart from having the bushes perpendicular to the loads off the A-frame. I'll just weld it in, make sure the bushes are done up correctly and not think about it then.

[RangingRover]

and not think about it then.

LOL! Thats the way - do what I do, and carry a bucket of sand everywhere you go

[Slunnie]

nah, just thinking back to a Vitara that we were putting a locker into. The A-frame had to come off the third member where it mounted, and it took a fair bit off effort to pull it back down onto the diff when putting it back on. Probably the same type of thing.