TC upper a arms hitting inside wheels

[Certified Lotus]

I’ve been working around the clock to get my TC completed to drive to LOG. Did a Road test today and the car runs great and the shifting was much better than I remembered.

BUT, on cornering I heard rubbing from the front wheels. Put the car back on the lift after a short road test looking for any rubbing in fender wells. Nope. Then looked closer and saw the upper a arms are hitting the inside of the wheel.

The upper arms are stock from the original car and are fine. The lowers are OEM NOS that I bought. I wonder if they are too long are are forcing the top of the wheel inward.

Anyone have knowledge on this? This problem stops me cold for driving the car to log. (Was waiting for something like this to happen).

[BDA]

That is a head scratcher! I've never heard of anything like that! I'm tempted to ask what wheels you're running but it really doesn't matter at this point, does it? Does this happen on both wheels?

I think I would peen those corners or even grind them to provide clearance, It wouldn't weaken them functionally - to provide clearance and then order a set of adjustable upper wishbones from Lotus Supplies, r.d., or Dave Bean (my suspicion is that Lotus Spares would be the most economical). The problem would be solved and you'd have a camber adjustment.

Another option is to get some spacers for the wheels to move them away from the wishbones. In either case, I would do the bare minimum of grinding, peening, or spacing to do the job.

Edit: On second thought, peening is not really practical.

[jbcollier]

You have a lot of space in the posted photo.  Mine are so close they'll peel off inappropriately placed stick-on wheel weights.  Disconnect the lower shock mount and move the wheel up and down and see what's up.

[Certified Lotus]

The wheels are the stock cosmic aluminum wheels. The upper a arm hits both wheels evenly. When the car is on the ground the camber looks excessive (although I haven’t measured yet).

I’m scratching my head on this. Larry is coming over tomorrow before I start disassembly to see if he can understand what is going on.

I should probably get my Elan ready for the LOG road trip..........unless a miracle happens....

[EuropaTC]

Wow, that must be 1/2" or so of movement, very weird. 

I thought the lower front links were the same dimensions for the TC cars but I don't know if the same holds for S1/S2 and TC wishbones so perhaps there's the possibility of mixed up parts.

I would have said "severely bent link" but for both sides to be showing the same thing that's not likely. Thinking aloud, is it possible to fit the vertical links the wrong way round ?

Brian

ps - congratulations on the "most baffling problem this month" award.....   

[4129R]

I had similar when fitting non-standard wheels. It was due to the offset.

I had to fit a 1/4" spacer to clear the arms.

[EuropaTC]

I had similar when fitting non-standard wheels. It was due to the offset.

I had to fit a 1/4" spacer to clear the arms.

Wouldn't that be binding all the time though Alex ? From that photo it looks to have bags of clearance either static (or full droop ?) but has clearly been rubbing at some point on the arc.  I also wondered about freak stone jamming, but that's not going to work on both sides.

Brian

[2766R]

Just a thought on a possible solution.  I'm assuming by "camber looks excessive..." you mean negative (tops of wheels tipped inward).  I had the opposite situation, not enough negative camber (I use to autocross).  My solution was to slot the upper arms and fabricated stainless steel plates to lock the upper ball joints in place.  May work for you to add positive camber as well as clearance.  Good luck!  See you at LOG hopefully with your Europa!

Gerry

[Certified Lotus]

I thought about this overnight and came to the conclusion the coil over springs are too short, or at least need to be adjusted upward. Bruce sent me an email saying he had the same problem when he used shorter springs so he hammered the ends of the upper arms to create a different profile so they wouldn’t rub the inside of the wheel.

I have the correct size upper and lower arms (first thing I checked and found part numbers on the lower arms to confirm). And they are assembled correctly (I had posted this early in my rebuild and gotten lots of input, JB had the answer).

So if this is just springs I have the solution. Maybe.........

[tedtaylor]

would it have anything to do with cutting the springs when you lowered the front end??
**you posted while I was writing, so we're on the same page**

[Certified Lotus]

Ted, I had 10 inch springs installed and didn't like the height of the car (front end up too high) so I removed them and installed 8 inch springs. I haven’t adjusted the perch yet so I have a fair amount of adjustment that can be made. I’ll know sometime today if I solve the problem.

[4129R]

I had similar when fitting non-standard wheels. It was due to the offset.

I had to fit a 1/4" spacer to clear the arms.

Wouldn't that be binding all the time though Alex ?

Brian

It was a while ago. All I remember was a noise, I removed the wheels, saw the damage on wheels and top arms, fitted spacers, end of noise.

[Certified Lotus]

Got everything fixed today. Used a big hammer, a grinder and a file to shape the tip of the top A-Arms. Looks factory and you would never know. Rubbing of inside wheels is gone 

[BDA]

Great news! 

Now it's time to finish wringing her out for her debut!