scannon
07-13-2010, 05:17 PM
Last week I was doing a periodic check of bolt torques on the suspension of the Cat. For some reason I grabbed the anti-sway bar out near the end and gave it a shake.
I was quite surprised to feel some slack where the end disappears into the socket on the upper A arm. There is a black bakelite ball screwed onto the end of the anti-sway bar that rides in the socket which acts as the interface between the bar and the A arm.
I talked to Nathan and Ben about it and they said the balls were most likely broken, a not unusual occurrence with the Caterham.
Ben mailed me up a new pair of balls and I installed them a couple of days ago. The old balls were not broken but had a wear pattern around the circumference on both sides of the grease groove, see picture below. I didn't think to take a picture of the new ones but they didn't show any wear pattern.
When I next drove the car I was amazed at the difference in body lean and turn in. Far more than I expected since the measured difference in diameter between the worn and new balls was about 0.4 mm.
I was quite surprised to feel some slack where the end disappears into the socket on the upper A arm. There is a black bakelite ball screwed onto the end of the anti-sway bar that rides in the socket which acts as the interface between the bar and the A arm.
I talked to Nathan and Ben about it and they said the balls were most likely broken, a not unusual occurrence with the Caterham.
Ben mailed me up a new pair of balls and I installed them a couple of days ago. The old balls were not broken but had a wear pattern around the circumference on both sides of the grease groove, see picture below. I didn't think to take a picture of the new ones but they didn't show any wear pattern.
When I next drove the car I was amazed at the difference in body lean and turn in. Far more than I expected since the measured difference in diameter between the worn and new balls was about 0.4 mm.