Rear suspension low

[nigel jarrett]

The rear suspension on my 1953 is low ,it has been suggested that the rear top arms are on upside down ,to my eye they look OK any ideas please or pictures of correct position.
Many thanks

[David Morris]

Hi Nigel, my Javelin suffered from low rear suspension on both sides. Normally, you can see some light between the top of the rear tyre and the lowest part of the rear wing. You couldn't on mine! My car, at the time, was having some welding done by Dennis Sparrow at his depot in Hammersmith. She was suffering from stress fractures to the front chassis legs, around the forward bracket on both front torsion bars. THis is held to the chassis by four, fairly small, bolts. There is also a vertical bolt through this bracket, up to the upper surface of the chassis. I hadn't reaised the vital importance of keeping all these small diameter bolts absolutely dead tight! Both front brackets, over time, had 'fretted' as the car travelled and in sympathy the chassis was showing stress cracking. If not treated professionally, this would have meant the end of life for my Javelin.

Hence the visit to Dennis, who did a fantastic job. While my car was in his capable hands, he mentioned that she looked low at the rear. We talked about cutting the top arms, and rewelding them at a higher angle. Then Dennis had a thought, and suggested the the RH arm might now be on the LH side, and vice versa for the other side? He reversed them and that proved to be the cure! Dennis added that, in order to 'improve' handling this was often done in competition events. I remembered that my car, DCB 246, has been previously owned by Ken Lees, who apparently used it very competitively, as he was the club's Competition Secretary!

He probably might also have been initially responsibe for the stress cracks?

Hope this helps, David

[David Morris]

Hi Nigel, further to my previous comments, if you do think about reversing the top rear suspension arms, I think this would involve taking off the covers that protect where the arms fit over the transverse torsion bars? These are aluminium castings, and when Dennis Sparrow changed over my arms, he had to replace these covers. Being aluminium, and exposed to everything the road wheel throws at them, they get very corroded. Mine almost fell to bits when we tried to remove them. I managed to source some new ones, I think from JCS. I think too that the static torsion bar holders, that these covers attache to, for want of a better description, might also be aluminium? Anyway, the outer covers that I mentioned earlier are retained by set screws, and again these will be very rusty, if not seized? I think the purpose of my comments is perhaps a warning that the operation to change over the top arms is going to be a battle against the effects of time and corrosion. Be prepared to have a difficult task?

I do hope this goes ok, and, of course, there is the other option of cutting the existing arms, in situ, and rewelding them at a higher angle?

Hope this helps? David

[RichardMc]

Shhh…, don’t tell everyone! That’s an old trick used on race Jowetts (as you found out) but it was a pretty well kept secret. It works on the Jupiter too but it reduces suspension travel, which is why a racing Jupiter will exit tight corners backwards!
JCS had the aluminium covers in stock a couple of years ago when I needed them for my Jupiter.