I had the misfortune of the swivel link bolts letting go at about 25 mph on
a country road. Road spring flew across the road and front fender came down
hard on the wheel, denting the fender and stopping the car. The shock
absorber wishbone twisted like a pretzel. An hour before that we were
travelling on the freeway and I noticed some sway after hitting bumps, but
couldn't find anything loose on visual inspection with the front end jacked
up.
Advice . . . replace all the swivel pan bolts with high grade (I think I
used grade 8) nuts and bolts and be sure they aren't over torqued.
Andy Moyce
52 TD (repaired)
----- Original Message -----
From: Francis Precht <fprecht@mail.frostburg.edu>
To: <mg-t@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 8:26 AM
Subject: front coil spring
> Greetings all;
> I'm in the midst of front end rebuilding of my 52 TD and have LOTS of
> questions - so prepare for the onslaught ;-)
>
> I have found that one of the front coil springs had the first 2/3 of the
> bottom turn cracked and it remained in the spring pan on removal. All
> has been scraped, blasted, cleaned up and primed. The opposite side
> appeared in decent shape on cleanup.
>
> Should I err on the safe side and replace BOTH front coil springs ? Is
> it necessary that they be a matched set if such a thing exists ? (Moss
> sells as a set, yet Abingdon sells individually).
>
> The bad spring was also on the same side (R/H) as an SAE grade 5 (!)
> bolt was located for the lower swivel link. In addition, the lower
> swivel link was bronze, and the other 3 were steel. I've seen the
> bronze swivel links before, but where they replacements ? I haven't
> seen any reference to the difference between steel and bronze swivel
> links in component chronologies. Any ideas ?
>
> Thanks in advance.
> Bud Precht (a long way from a test drive!)
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