Swivel Pin End Float

[David Morris]

Hi All,

The book tells you that, on the later rubber-bushed front suspension, the free float ( ie the up and down free play ) should be no more than 0.015".

It then goes on to instruct you, should the free play be more than this, to dismantle the front suspension and insert shims at the lower end of the pin to bring the free play to within limits.

Having found this necessary, and you know I am always one to shun doing more work than essential, I looked for an alternative procedure, as taking everything apart looked like a big job.

I found that you can fairly easily take one half of the top yoke away from the top bracket, allowing you to spin the bushed top off from the threaded swivel pin. You can then fit a thicker thrust washer than the one you will find there, underneath the bushed top 'nut' and check the end float. The original Jowett thrust washer will probably be well worn. I found my local engineering shop had these washers in stock for a few pence. You may need to file the thickness of this replacement washer to meet the 0.015" clearance and make sure this is achieved with the 'nut' facing the right way. Reassembly is then easy.

I found this was a quick and easy way to achieve the correct play and made my annual MoT inspection a breeze. Obviously this doesn't affect the forward and back play of the swivel pin, but I only once found this to be a problem, if you keep everything well greased. If this does become a problem, I am sure JCS keeps reground swivel pins and their matching bushes. Ss I mentioned, I did have to do this job once, and it involves honing the bushes with a parallel reamer, as they expand after being driven into place. I still have the reamer on the shelf, if you ever want to borrow it! Or perhaps JCS will loan you one as a part of their loan tools scheme?

You might to consider this method of solving up and down swivel pin play, if you are ever faced with this problem? I don't know if the same solution applies to the earlier solid type of front suspension, as I eliminated the problem on an early Javelin by exchanging the worn early front suspension with the later rubber-bushed type in a 'kerbside motors' weekend operation, when I was much younger and needed the car to get to work on a daily basis, the car having just failed it's MoT. The local scrap yards at that time ( late 1960's ) had lots of Javelins, which anyway were being sold as runners for less than £75! The worst part of the job was getting the seven or eight bolts back into the later top mounting, which uses the same holes as the early type, where you have to reach deep inside the engine bay and feed the mounting bolts through into the mounting inside the wheel arch. I think my wife was called into help by spinning on the outer nuts! Bless her!

All the best,

David