Broken rear shock mount

[DrKai]

Rear nearside upper shock mount broke the other day while out. Managed to crawl it home. Rotoflex car with bracket on the body which I believe is notorious for it had rotted through and snapped. This has made my mind up to have the body off and sort things properly once I have a garage sorted. In the meantime I was led to believe by others that now having cv shafts I could do away with this mount and use non-rotoflex shocks and mount to the original chassis pickup. Duly ordered non-roto shocks and bolts and got round to giving it a go today. In short it just doesn't look like it will work at all for a couple reasons:

• Attached shock to lower mount and jacked up the hub to locate in top. Spring was flat and looked like it needed to go even further to locate properly. 
• If we had forced the spring the shock would not have been vertical as the chassis mount is further forward than the body mount. To move the hub forward a sufficient amount seemed like it would introduce a huge amount of toe in. 

Question is should this work? If so does anyone know what else is needed

 

Thanks

Kai

[Gully]

There's a bracket available as part of the conversion kit from the Club shop and other suppliers which provides the replacement top shock mount.

 

Gully

[DrKai]

Have seen the mount relocation kit but it doesn't seem to have any offset built in? Unless it is much wider than the original chassis mount and allows a lot of spacers to be used?

Thanks

Kai

[Clive]

I have CV shafts and use the std non-roto shocks (Koni)

 

Thy sit at a slight angle, but all seems fine. My sring is lowered about an inch, but I don't think that makes a difference.

 

If teh rubbers are new, it may take some effort to get them in, and I usually fit the top mount first. Then one bottom rubber to the lower mount, wiggle the eye on, and then the other rubber and washer/nut.  

Which shocks are you using? if they have one piece bushes that may/will make life more difficult.

[DrKai]

Thanks a lot Clive. Had another go at it with assurance it should work. It was the one piece bush that was the issue, shimmed it in with a credit card and a lot of grease and we're away. Sitting much straighter now too. I think I might have moved the hub while jacking it up a bit last time. 

Now to do something about that camber

[Clive]

Is that posive cambe after driving the car? or just after it has been jacked up?

 

Saying that I have negative camber with my rear (!) jacked up.

 

As said, I think my spring is about an inch higher at the mounting than std (but I have a scooby diff, and it wasn't easy working out where to weld the spring mounting. The only reference point where the rear diff mounting bushes)

Also I have some different lower wishbone brackets, the mounting holes are 25mm down and 5 mm further out. Think they are known as "racer" brackets.

[DrKai]

That's just after jacking will get it once i've done the other side and see how it looks after? 

Are these the brackets you speak of? http://www.canleyclassics.com/suspension-steering-and-brakes/rear-wishbone-mounting-bracket/ was thinking of fitting these when rebuilding

[Clive]

Some cars need to settle,totoflex less so but it will go back to how it was before jacking.

 

My brackets are home made, the canleys ones have the different height options, but they are all the same distance out.

 

This may help:

http://sideways-technologies.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic/1396-rotoflex-rear-suspension-tuning-the-lo-tec-way/

 

(my brackets are from John when he changed to a bespoke lower wishbone bracket)

[DrKai]

awesome thanks clive