Lotus Europa Community
Lotus Europa Forums => Garage => Topic started by: TurboFource on Wednesday,January 08, 2020, 06:59:31 PM
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Since it appears the front sway bar attachment on the shock is closer to the ground than the wheel, does It dig into the road surface when you get a flat causing terrible things to happen?
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Not usually. Although it looks very low (3" ?) it moves with the lower arm and there's a fixed distance between the wheel rim/hub centre and hence the lower arm.
Where it does cause problems is potholes or the style of speed bumps/sleeping policeman that we have in some areas over here which don't cover the full width of the lane. If the wheel drops in a deep pothole and you're lucky enough to have judged it to within a couple of inches then you could strike the bottom pin of the damper on the road surface.
It does happen but you need to be good to do that though.... ;)
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I have sheared the stud off, which screws into the bottom of the shocker, just putting the car in the garage where gravel drive meets concrete garage floor with too much of a jump up.
I replaced the stud, and raised the gravel up to nearer the concrete level.
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I sheared one of mine off on a speed bump. They are very light bolts, perhaps 1/4 inch. I drilled the old bolt out and installed a 5/16 grade 5. Has worked well so far.
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Seems crazy to meto mount it so slow. I realize it goes up down with the suspension, how close to the ground does it get when you get a flat?
Has anyone repositioned it higher?
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I'm sure there are others besides this guy (here's a picture of his anti-roll bar setup: https://www.prevanders.net/europa/frontsusp.html). Here's another view: https://www.prevanders.net/europa/dampers.html. If you look closely, you can see that he welded ears on the bar that they mount on a shortened drop link. I think I would prefer to modify the drop link differently so the bar would ride in a solid bush off the drop link. Of course, that would have to be split to put the bar in and then bolted on. In any case, his design seemed to work. He has an extensive site devoted to the development of his Europa here: https://www.prevanders.net/europa/index.html.
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BDA,
Thanks for the link. I agree the welded on ears to mount it is unusual,
It would seem to me the bar would move in an unusual way as it tries to twist
But it's movement is restricted by the ears and tries roll around them.
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It does seem like the bolts through the ears on the bar when it twists. I wish he had included more specifics about the bar (diameter and length of the arms at least). That car was recently sold on BaT. I wonder if you had a BaT account, you could contact him.