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MG MGF Technical - TF 115 suspension

I've posted this on the other site to get the maximum information.

Has anyone had the same problem as us ?

MG TF 115 bought new in august 2002.

After a couple of hundred miles I could here a knocking from the front suspension, turns out that there was fore and aft play in the right hand side upper suspension arm. This arm was changed along with the needle roller bearings and all was fine.
A couple of hundred miles later the knocking was back and so was the play in the upper arm, so having already changed the arm they decided to change the upper bar that goes through the arm (don’t know the name of it) and all was fine.
Guess what ? a couple of hundred miles later the knocking was back, this time there was a lot of head scratching going on, they didn’t know what was going on and decided to change everything that concerned the upper arm: arm, bar, bearings, washers etc… and it worked for a couple of hundred miles, now its back BUT this time there is play on BOTH sides of the front suspension.

Does anyone know of a problem ?

Is it normal to have play in the front upper arms ?

Is there or was there a manufacturing fault where tolerances were out ?

MG Rover France don’t have a clue, they don’t sell as many here as they do in England so not much feedback.

Please if anyone can give me the slightest bit of information so that we can get this sorted I would be so grateful.

Thanks for reading

Pete
pete

It is probably the spring moving on the bottom of the shocker as it is not located on a shaped platform. I presume they greased the top arm?
HTH Mike.
mike

yes it was greased.
the car's going in again in 2 weeks for a fouth attempt to fix it once and for all.

Its definately the top arm moving on the pivot bar which is firmly bolted to the subframe, nothing to do with the spring or shocker.

pete
pete

Sounds like a frustrating problem Pete - I hope that you get it sorted soon. Quite what is responsible for the increased rate of wear I don't know: is the subframe in good alignment? Might the upper suspension mounts be out of tolerance?
Rob Bell

If the top arm is moving fore and aft and new bearings and pivot have been fitted then the thrust washers are not sized correctly, reshim or make new sized thrust washers to take out the play. More of a problem with the TF than the F due to the arm eccentrically loaded Good luck.
Mike.
mike


Mike, what does "eccentrically loaded" mean ? what is different with the TF to the F ? (apart from the change from hydragas to springs)

Pete
pete

Pete, "eccentrically loaded" means that the load that the spring applies to the spring pan is not central, but to one side. Hydragas doesn't have this problem because, effectively, the whole system works in a single plane - I guess you could call this "concentrically loaded"!
Rob Bell

Knew you would be along Rob;-)
Mike.
mike

This thread was discussed between 11/02/2004 and 12/02/2004

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