Dave Wellings - Fitting a Panhard Rod

This turned out to be my last job of 2018. I'd been putting it off for all sorts of reasons, but yesterday came the right combination of available time, and warmish weather.

So, Panhard Rods are available now from a number of sources. This one is from SSL. Some rods secure to the leaf spring by a saddle clamp. This one uses a replacement lower plate for the U bolts. 

http://www.suspensionsupplies.co.uk/products/4593177137

Depending on model and year of Morgan the Panhard rod may need to be designed so as to avoid the fuel outlet pipe from the fuel tank. 

Typically changes whether it is designed to be mounted to the left side, or right side, of the chassis.

And here it is. This is one of the early production versions.
This is the orientation on the car, which is just visible.

My first job was to remove the old U bolt plate. The nuts came off easily.

I did consider taking a leaf out, (both sides!) but in the end took the lazy option.
I locked the spring in place by inserting wooden blocks between spring and chassis while I did this. 

The centre hole on the plate wasn't big enough to fit over the leaf spring through bolt nut, but some drill and file action fixed that.

This is the old plate. Notice how its (cut) asymmetrical, chassis to the right.

Next I clamped the cross-member in place........taking care to get it straight!!!

When aligned I drilled the eight holes.....I bought some special drills for this, and they were very impressive.................

I cleaned up the surroundings and applied some galvanising primer to the holes. When dry I bolted the cross-member up and coated the threads with ACF50.

I fitted the rod to the crossmember.............

Later I would have liked to have tried it in the lower of the two holes, but the floor timber gets in the way and needs cutting slightly for clearance. 

By that time I'd had enough so maybe that's something for another time.

At this point I discovered that I should have put the bolt in at the other end from below..............
But I also discovered this clearance issue on full rebound. 

Note that my Roadster has six leaves. More current cars with four leaves means an increase in the clearance here of the thickness of two leaves.

I also tested clearance on my Plus 4, but with the fuel tank protruding further forward by a significant amount, I'm not comfortable with the clearance I have, so for now I'm not doing this job on the Plus 4. Remember that every Morgan will vary slightly!!!!

So I had to drop the cross-member to get the bolt in (no way the nut will fit below) and I also cut away half the bolt head. 

Now its OK. It's feeler gauge clearance but it's clearance. I've fed this back to Peter B.

An alternative fix here would be to space the crossmember down a few mm, or file away a section of the cross-member.

I sprayed the whole thing with Tectyl 506 when completed.

This is clearance at static height.

Finally I checked for sideways movement between static height and full rebound using a straight edge, and there's no sideways movement. 

This took about five hours at a leisurely pace.

I'll report back after a test drive.

P.S. 

Those wheel supports, Seen on the left here, came from some spare timber I had laying around. I made four and they can be used like that for maximum lift or on their sides for a bit lower.

I use either a pair (front or rear) or all four........

They are invaluable!

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