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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Wishbone / stubaxle cork rings

Good evening gent's
At the stub axle / wishbone joint there are two cork rings. Is this the still the way to go or are more modern alternatives awailable now a day's, rubber, silicone or what ever rings?
Jan
Jan Kruber

The quality of cork these days is awful. Last time I bought a set they had split before I finished attaching the wishbone to the car.

A much better alternative, a very old alternative, is leather. A local member makes these out of old leather belts. Much better than cork, better fitting and better sealing. Soak first for a few days in engine oil which will swell them up a bit.

Rob
MG Moneypit

The first problem you may encounter is finding good wishbones. In the picture the wishbone was incorrectly formed.
That part of the wishbone where the trunnion pin bridges was more of a V than a U shape.
Another complaint was of misaligned fulcrum pin trunnions giving the kingpin a one degree list.
From whomever you purchase your wishbones examine them with a fine both comb. The two cork gaskets are meant to be different sizes.
Alan


Alan Anstead

Again, very informative answers, thank you.
Leather rings would be easy to cut.
Tomorrow I will examine the wishbones thoroughly. Frightening with so many low quality parts around.
I bought my new wishbones at Moss the other day, I certainly hope they'r okay.
Jan Kruber

I have made replacements for these from slices of dense foam pipe insulation, which works well. The slices can be cut slightly oversized so that when fitted they are compressed and make a fairly good seal.

However it is important that when grease is pumped in, it does get forced out past the seals so as to take with it any road grit that may have worked its way in there. The grease isn't just for lubrication! Its also a means of regularly cleaning muck out.
GuyW

I used some rubber for one of mine. The cork ones had fallen apart during a rebuild and I didn't have any new ones, I found a rubber gaiter off something and cut a couple of bits off it and they turned out perfect. Much better at keeping the grease in and dirt out as they are squashed in tightly. Trouble is I can't remember what the gaiter was off so I'll have to look for something similar when I do the other side.
John Payne

Alan, I have attached a picture of one of the new wishbones, the worst of them, allthough not as bad as your example. I wonder why they don't make them right first time?
I will figure out how to make some rings from a flexible oil and grease resistant material or find some soft o-rings, again oil restistant or maybe cut some soft silicone hose in slices


Jan Kruber

At this years Practical Classics Show, with two assistants, I converted the then Masc Editors Frogeye to disc brakes. Wishbones uprights etc were changed. Weeks before the event parts, a mix of new and reconditioned were assembled and dry fitted on my workbench to eliminate and problems or surprises at the show. I think it safe to say that just about every part, whether new or reconditioned, needed attention.


Alan Anstead

I remember doing the sme thing as john... I went to the plumbing section of the big box store and matched up some oil resistant rubber washers and shaved them to the proper size... That was 15 years plus ago ?? It was one of my 1st projects on the car... and as far as I know... it's still good today

Then I gloat and guess what will happen tomarrow.... HAHA

KNOCK knocking on novels head for good luck...haha

Prop
1 Paper

I remember special cork borers in my days in chemistry labs. First find suitable cork: https://www.brecklandscientific.co.uk/Cork-Borers-s/8960.htm, sizes explained: http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/89692.pdf & http://american-scientific.com/CORK_BORERS_SET6

Malcolm - with your good work making suitable rear hub gaskets sets, how about the world of cork?

Cheers
Mike
M Wood

I used garden hose seals the last time I rebuilt the front end. They seem to have held up fine and perhaps let less dirt and water into the high wear threaded pin area.
Glenn Mallory

Hi guys
Update on the wishbone subject.
After having vacuumed the web for O-rings etc to fill the wedge shaped gap between the king pin and the wishbones I finally gave up, realizing, that it actually is not my problem to solve, but the supplier. I finally had to contact Moss and leave a complaint with pictures to visualize the problem. I was very excited to see if I would get an answer, and if, what would be their answer.
I got an answer a few days later, they take my complaint serious, I'm very satisfied with that.
I will return the "aftermarket" wishbones and have a refund and I have ordered the OE wishbones. They are twise as expensive though, but I will never be happy if I fitted the crooked wishbones.
The picture is the from Moss, shoving the one of two they have found for me. Looks how I had expected first time.
Ordering the cheap ones at first make me think I was naive to believe that a product at half the price is as good as the more expensive ones.
But then again, Moss does not mention, that they are of an inferor quality.
Here is their reply to me:

Our Technical team has selected two wishbone pans under the OE spec part number AHA7029 and will supply them with free fulcrum pins. See the text below.

“I have put two together to check the fitment, see photo, they seem to fit well. the fulcrum pins do not come with wishbones but I have fitted them so please free issue them.
Whilst every effort is made to insure the quality of our parts are fit for purpose sometimes the supplier makes an error, they may have been making the part perfectly for years and then the mistake happens, you the customer are the first to find this out and report to us. Some customers modify or adjust the parts so they do fit, problem with that is they don’t usually tell us, so we keep selling them. some of our suppliers buy from other suppliers, the part may be perfect for years then our supplier changes their supplier and we end up with a poor quality part, we try very hard to check the parts as an when they come into the building but sometimes they slip the net so to speak.”

Please if you wish to proceed with the order of two AHA7029 then please confirm the order online and let me know the order reference. I shall then process the order with discount, a reduced shipping cost and free of charge fulcrum pins.




Jan Kruber

Oh, a reduced shipping cost. How nice.

Shouldn't they be shipping them free of charge?
Dave O'Neill 2

I have been i touch with Moss customer service several times and I feel they take the matter seriously.
They have sent me the OE wishbones "made in UK" and gave me a discount at 16 each, not much really. But I do not have to return the first delivered non OE wishbones, but will have the refund.
BUT - taday the twice as expensive OE wishbones arrived, the disappointment was to feel. They are even worse than the non OE wishbones, I hardly didn't believe what I saw.
I have never received motorcycle - or car parts that inferior. It's only possible to attach one picture here, so I those the one you see, but the wishbones have multiple serious flaws. I will have to return it all.
Now I have a midget - but no wishbones....
Can it be true, that there are no suppliers with some decent wishbones on the shelf?



Jan Kruber

Jan, This is ridiculous!
They not only claimed to have selected components:
“I have put two together to check the fitment"
- but then send you a photo of the acceptable selected part(s) and then send something which clearly IS NOT what they had selected !

I don't know what they think they are doing but you have a very strong case to insist that they put this right immediately, and at their full expense.
GuyW

Apart from anything else, those bushes look like they have been tack welded in place.
Dave O'Neill 2

As I was suggesting to Guy in another thread you have to allow for camera angle, if you think the camera never lies you might also believe all the people in the motor trade are saints.

From my left side my face is beautiful but from my right side ... it's even more beautiful ... but in reality neither are.

Jan,
sorry, I was hoping I'd be wrong, I did try to warn you in another thread. Even being purely selfish I was hoping to be wrong as as I put before if they were good I'd buy a set for stock.

Sorry but welcome to the world of piss-poor parts.

Perhaps DaveO or David Smith might have a good quality set of s/h to offer you(?).
Nigel Atkins

Dave,

I agree and had noticed that before but haven't posted about it. IIRC the originals had a small amounts of welding, some spot welds and short tacks, the bushes outboard and inboard were brazed in so these wishbones are still not OE spec but what does that mean. I've seen lots of newer parts quoted as OE which were not the same as the originals. Looks to me like the problems should be easy to solve with some improved jigging and QA but it doesn't seem like that is a high priority. Any idea who makes these things and where, I can't imagine there is great demand so is there just the one maker and parts and prices based on the quality of the end result as both items shown look the same in the photos. I'll be sticking with my modified wishbones for the foreseeable future. Sounds like the situation that has been mentioned with new LA dampers, a total crap shoot as to whether you get a product fit for purpose.
David Billington

The point here is not the parts are poor, we can all see that. The issue is one of deception / honesty, or lack of it. They have undertaken to provide two carefully SELECTED components and provided a photo of what they said they were able and would supply (although that one isn't perfect either) And then they send piss poor parts. What is their excuse for that !
GuyW

Just my thoughts no proof, doesn't apply to any specific supplier just a generalisation that applies to most.

Living in the real world - parts are required, the vast majority of customers want them as cheap as possible, if you want to sell them at mark up and profit you need them made very cheaply.

To get them cheaply you have to have a lot made, samples are reasonable so you proceed with order. Full order comes in, they're not as sample but you're stuck with them. At the cost and profit you can afford to keep replacing those returned from some customers as it will not be 100% anyway.

Barry King wishbones where supposed to be of better quality but went out of business - obviously the required sales (and possibly advertising/promotion/word of mouth) weren't there or somebody else would have taken on the business.

There are not enough customers who are willing to pay for good enough quality parts - and on occasions that can include any of us here.
Nigel Atkins

Something tells me that the 'quality' items were being made - or possibly commissioned - by Heritage.
Dave O'Neill 2

ETA: Guy have you never dealt with the er managers of Toss(?).
Nigel Atkins

Nigel,

I thought the main reason for the Barry King wishbone business closing wasn't lack of sales but that he wanted to retire although it is unfortunate that no one wanted to take on that business as a going concern.
David Billington

Correct, David B, Barry did eventually retire having tried to find a buyer for the business over a couple of years or more, so his son told me. Unfortunately nobody in the classic parts world seems to want to actually make anything, preferring to let the Chinese (and others) do the dirty work while they simply flog whatever is sent to them. The presses alone took up a double garage space, a fair sized unit would have been needed to house everything and unless you already have a barn in the country it really wouldn't cost in at an acceptable level I suspect.
David Smith

None of this really helps Jan though. I don't know if all the wishbones now available originate from one source or not but there is clearly a variation in quality even from this one retailer. They do have at least the one better one that they photographed - unless of course that was a "stock" photo rather than of a wishbone currently available.

One of the characteristics of poor quality is unmanaged variability. That is, the range of accuracy of fabrication is wide. So there are likely to be some within acceptable limits whilst others, like the one supplied to Jan, are just scrap. Unfortunately the days of manufacturers doing their own quality control are long gone. Its now left to the end customer to do the quality control and to create a fuss when poor parts arrive.

I don't know how the distance selling regulations apply to Jan but if he were UK based he could insist on his money back. Or insist that they do what they had promised and sorted out an acceptable pair. That assumes they understand enough about them to spot the faults in their stock.

I bought a very acceptable pair of wishbones from Sussex Classics about 3 months ago - and they were a good deal cheaper than Moss were offering at he time. But maybe I was just lucky!
GuyW

Jan, are you anywhere near Copenhagen? If so I could give a pair of decent used A pans to Nik when I meet him at the Bremen Classic next weekend, and you could collect them from MG Parts & Service later in the week?
David Smith

David,
that sounds very interresting, would you please send me your email, so I can contact you. I can see mine here above, or?, but in case its not visible for you, it's:
kru1 (at) mailme.dk
Thanks
Jan
Jan Kruber

Nigel, this is how crooked it is, I'm aware that the camere can cheat, but believe me, my eyes don't :-)
I wish I could send you a series of pictures, believe me, the OE wishbones are so bad manufactured.
The OE and non OE are different made, in fact, the OE looks as a cheap copy of the non OE. I'm amazed.
I wrote yet another complaint Friday ebvening, with a few pictures of the two OE parts and just now saw that they replied yesterday, Saturday, claiming that they will forward the matter to their technical compartment, but they allready did, didn't they?



Jan Kruber

Dave, yes they are Heritage
Jan Kruber

Oh, and here's the picture Dave


Jan Kruber

I've rotated the photo slightly, to square it up and drawn some perpendicular lines.

The main pressing seems to be fairly good, but the way that support has been fitted is shocking.


Dave O'Neill 2

I have checked through a number of original old wishbones (I never throw stuff like that away!) and in every case the two webs that Jan highlights in red are welded equidistant either side of the central drainage hole in the main pressing, and paralel to each other. On both the ones Jan has pictured from Moss, they are skewed to one side,and although on the earlier shot of their "selected" example much less so, its still offset.
GuyW

Addendum: Posting the same time as Dave but his photo demonstrates it well. Given that is so obvious, and should have been very easy to align correctly before welding, I wouldn't trust that there aren't other errors in the pan that are less obvious, at least in the angles of the photos taken.
GuyW

Looking at the fulcrum pin, it certainly appears to be aligned out of kilter with the pressing - assuming everything is square and the spring pan holes are true. This then suggests the kingpin's articulation would be at odds with that of the damper arm - and once bolted up the difference would have to be taken up in the rubber bushing - or polybushes if fitted.
It would interesting to see how these are put together at the factory, because on the face of it it's difficult to imagine there's a jig anywhere in sight.



f pollock

If there is a jig I bet it only checks that the inner and outer Fulcrums are parallel.

Rob
MG Moneypit

Hi Jan,
firstly I must admit I didn't notice how croaked the pan webs were until after I'd posted by which time Microsoft wanted to bu**er up their own program and my computer's efficiency so I switched the computer off as that stops them for a time.

I meant the photo they took of the pan they had may have been at it's best angle but I'm with Guy clearly the pan you have isn't the one they photographed.

Keep all your records, contact them by email as you don't have proof of what's said in a phone conversation. I made the mistake of deleting all the emails I sent (and no record of phone calls of course) before ordering a product from them, to be sent the wrong product and be told in a phone conversation I'd ordered the wrong product. One of the employees told a blatant lie, not to me but in reporting back to the Director I was dealing with, I think the culture may be that the company doesn't allow (or even possibly encourage) honesty all the time.

Another occasion I rang another company and said I'd had piss-poor quality steering rack gaiters and asked if their original style gaiter were any better and the salesperson was honest enough over the phone to say he didn't necessarily expect a long life out of them. Moss would just say you get a 12 month warranty.

I think for me living nearer I'd take the pans back into Heritage where they're made(?) and see if they can swap they for a better made pair and get Moss to sort out the trade side of it. Hopefully Heritage would be ashamed enough to do this - perhaps you'll find Heritage have them made in China and just paint finished in the UK, or they're counterfeit, anything other than to think that's the quality of Heritage.

Good luck whatever.
Nigel Atkins

Worth comparing with what Moss advertise as the Heritage spring pan with clean beefy welds - not tacks and splatter.


f pollock

Depends when that photo was taken as production could have changed since then and they could have done what Moss might have done and photo'd their best looking model.

Nigel Atkins

(just thought)

Jan,
you could email the photos to Heritage to see if the pan is one of theirs.
Nigel Atkins

the managing director of BMH is John Yea, I'd contact him if they have made them.
David Smith

Certainly as the last set were BMH I would contact them direct about the issue and see what their response is. I just checked one of my OE wishbones and although modified most of that reinforcing piece is still present and is equidistant around the drainage hole with no sign of skewing. I can only think that if the fulcrum pin and bushes are correctly aligned then the fault must be with the punching and folding of the reinforcing bracket being at fault with the fulcrum bush holes being in the wrong place but without seeing the tooling that's a guess.

From the BMH site "QUALITY ASSURED

All Heritage product is built to the same exacting standards as parts used on the original manufacturer's production lines. All product is identified by the British Motor Heritage Approved part label and this is your assurance of originality and quality."

I guess that isn't always true. I know a mate had an early BMH shell and he had major issues with the quality.
David Billington

Well,
acording to the label on the boxes, they should have been made in the UK, so no chineese crap right? Or? The chineese can print labels too ......
I do not intent to contact BHM, I bought in at Moss, they are responsible and has to sort it out or give me a full refund.
And then I will buy two like the ones on the picture from f pollock :-)
It's a farce, I briefly thought I was a victim in a hippen camere show.
Joking aside, I might end up shipping the Moss metal waste back and claim a refund and I think it would be fair if they payed for the shipment.
David here has offered to supply me with a pair of decent used wishbones and I intend to buy them and shine them up.
What a story, I'm not against Moss, I think it's great that some people collect and distribute parts for our classics, but I'm amazed by the lack of quality control, at least in this case with the wishbones. On the Moss homepage they state:
"Today, our mission is to keep the great marques alive and well by supplying parts and accessories of the highest standard"
Well, well

Jan Kruber

Jan,
You are right in dealing with Moss. They are who you have a contract with, and you should insist that they put this right.

But at the same time I think you should alert BMH of the problem. Forward a photo of the part - the version that David edited would be good as it clearly shows the error. Say where you bought them and that they came with a Heritage label. BMH will be concerned if they are in fact counterfeited ones and will want to follow up on that. Or if they are in fact genuine Heritage ones, then they need to know that there is a fault in their manufacture.
GuyW

I thought the last image of the wishbone posted by F Pollock showed a skewing of the reinforcing to the left but not as bad as those received by Jan. Maybe an indication of ongoing tooling wear which has not been addressed.
David Billington

Guy,
I will alert BMH
Jan Kruber

Today I got a reply from Moss regarding my latest complaint on the OE BHM wishbone pans.

"I confess that it was me that checked the wishbones and quite obviously missed out the fact that these were still not correct with the lining up, I just checked that thy were parallel and that the cork seals fitted well with the vertical link.
I do apologies for the inconvenience this has caused you. If you wish to keep the aftermarket ones and send back the OE wishbones we will of course refund you including your shipping costs.
Kind Regards,"

So, after all Moss take their responsibilities seriously, but now I'm without Wishbone pans. I hope I can use the used ones david offer me.
Jan Kruber

Jan
Would you have a hi res copy of your red / green lined picture that I could use, with your permission, in our Club magazine.
Alan
Kent Rep Midget & Sprite Club
alan dot anstead at btopenworld dot com
Alan Anstead

Alan
Yes, off course you can, I send it as in a pm
Jan Kruber

To make the point unequivocal the image really needs to show a datum (interferance fit bar) that passes through the mounting pivot and then a bunch of measurements taken from this baseline.
Better still would be to do this using a 3D scanner so the critical X Y Z co-ordinates can be captured, and this data transferred to full digital model. Anyone at work got access to a 3D hand held scanner?


f pollock

I don't know how well they would work for this application but there are apparently some good free 3D scanning apps which work on a smart phone using the camera and taking multiple pictures and appropriate processing. I haven't tried any as I don't have a smart phone but I have heard of it and quickly found somes web pages listing a number of them with comments about their functionality.
David Billington

This thread was discussed between 09/12/2017 and 01/02/2018

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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