more power = suspension carnage

[YLD244]

hey guys, while driving to work today, i noticed a loud annoying creek on the drivers side rear suspension under acceleration. Luckily i was taking it easy today cause there was traffic, otherwise who know what kind of problems i coulda gotten into.

Anyway, i decided to have a check when i got home and this is what i found.

http://home.exetel.com.au/yld244/pics/suspension_break001.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/yld244/pics/suspension_break002.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/yld244/pics/suspension_break006.jpg
http://home.exetel.com.au/yld244/pics/suspension_break007.jpg


what a pain, now i gotta re weld the control arm bracket back to the body.
It is only hangin on by a few spot welds for now. This sucks.
I thought the 240 suspension was pretty strong. oh well. this wasnt something i had anticipated at all.

[shaved240]

wow i wasn't aware of that problem... wonder if its just because your 240 was an earlier model one compared to the newer 240s. I know that your model 240 has a smaller transmission tunnel and different odds and ends.

[SwedishBrick242...]

Wow, that sucks... but what a ****ing cool problem to have. That **** right there is bragging rights for sure.

[Wagner]

That's the part where the lower rear control arm attaches to the body, right? Maybe not just re-weld, it might be a good idea to reinforce that to prevent this from happening again.

Good that you noticed it before anything more dramatic happened.

[blkaplan]

awesome

[YLD244]

That's the part where the lower rear control arm attaches to the body, right? Maybe not just re-wled, it might be a good idea to reinforce that to prevent this from happening again.

Good that you noticed it before anything more dramatic happened.

yeah thats the part.
I may weld a plate across the two sections, but i think a few beads of weld all the way around will be sufficient, as there is only a few spot welds holding it together.

[945ti]

The good news is that the undercoating is pretty thin on 85- cars. Shouldn't be too hard to strip and weld, or it wasn't for me.
I haven't gotten to these. I might have to cook up a gusseting system for these, the front mounts, and the jack points while I am busy with 240 junk.

[Volvo244GLE]

:omg: that could have got very interesting. lucky u picked up on it.

[YLD244]

yeah hopefully itll hold till i get to the workshop and get it up on the hoist.
It should be ok if i take it easy, as most of the force is upward against the body.

[GrandmaSideways]

Wow could've messed up a lovely 240 very fast.

[Bigbegum69]

put some ovencleaner on it to take the undercoat off....



thats badass by the way...

[ashvolvo]

Awesome!

more power?
manufacturing defect?
an early model 240 quirk?
a result of a very low ride height with shorter and more forceful arm movement?

Who'd know? 'more power' sounds like the coolest explanation though. Well done. Take detailed pics and frame them. Put the up in your garage and show them off with pride.

I had a nice collection of broken stuff in the corner of my dads workshop for a while. Very cool.

[Midgie245R]

Whoa Pink!

Nice pick up marc. Who'd have thought that would've happened?!

How's that new diff coming along mate?

[YLD244]

Whoa Pink!

Nice pick up marc. Who'd have thought that would've happened?!

How's that new diff coming along mate?

new diff is on the floor of the garage ready to go in. Brand new Borg Warner with 4.11 gears.
this tuesday is the big day for fitment, and probably when ill get to welding the bracket back on.
So more pics to come then.

[Midgie245R]

Nice. Looking forward to them. Got my 4.10 TT ready to go in next week too. Good luck with it

[Crazychopstick]

Sweet. Yeah, I can't help but wonder if your ride height had anything to do with that. But rock on dude.

[MikeHardy]

your really low suspension + lots more power could be causing that.

if the arm is horizontal the arm pushing forwards looks like it would be trying to peel that bracket off the body.

[speedn_j]

with my v8 240 i've destroyed every suspension part except for that one

[Hank Scorpio]

Looks like you could drill through the floor and bracket, sandwich it with a plate on the inside and bolt together. Then weld the entire thing into 1 assembly. Should distribute the load over alot more of the floor pan.

Good job btw ;-)

[RedFridge]

Wow. The car is toast.
Such a shame to see a nice car bite the dust and become unusable in Aussieland.
Now..
Ship that car to me post-haste. ;-)

[BrickLove]

Looks like you could drill through the floor and bracket, sandwich it with a plate on the inside and bolt together. Then weld the entire thing into 1 assembly. Should distribute the load over alot more of the floor pan.

Good job btw ;-)

+1

[Slobodan]

My 79 Wagon is making some strange banging noise under acceleration first second and third gears. I haven't put it on a lift, but I can see anything that is loose. but I wonder if my wagon is doing the same thing.

[badvlvo]

Looks like you could drill through the floor and bracket, sandwich it with a plate on the inside and bolt together. Then weld the entire thing into 1 assembly. Should distribute the load over alot more of the floor pan.

Good job btw ;-)


That's the fix on the Fox body Fords. It wouldn't be too hard and would prevent further damage as the car improves in traction and power.

[adrianpike]

Well done, good sir. :clap:

[YLD244]

just a quick question, would u guys remove the back seat when welding in that area from underneath?

[ashvolvo]

just a quick question, would u guys remove the back seat when welding in that area from underneath?

Theres probably no need to, but personally, since its so easy to do, I'd remove it anyway just to be sure.

[945ti]

just a quick question, would u guys remove the back seat when welding in that area from underneath?

I would. The floor is fairly thin there and behind the front seats, but heavier near the jack point. I put a lot of heat through the floor and set the (disconnected from the tank) fuel lines on fire in my 240...exciting!
I usually burn through or almost through and then knit the floor back together to get a reasonably strong (though somewhat ugly) weld. Good idea on the sammich...that would save some work and I have some steel.

[towerymt]

Definitely remove the rear seat. Mine is just foam on the bottom side against the floor, and against the tar paper stuck to the floor. I don't think it would be very hard to light up the tar stuff and maybe burn the seat as well. I would use a heat gun and scrape the tar off the interior side before welding, just to keep the smoke/stink from being inside the car.

[Matt Dupuis]

You had your doubts, Marc, but I think some of us called it:

http://forums.turbobricks.com/showpost.php?p=1091545&postcount=43

Anyway, I've got pictures of the reinforcing I did to my 242 shell. One of the things I forsaw breaking was that very piece, so I stitch welded the bucket down to the body and then gusseted the bucket forward to the floorpan. I'll post pix later.

[Matt Dupuis]

As promised

[|2aebird]

Thats crazy man, but definately big bragging rights... I recon what matt dupuis has done is the way to go, looks very strong... I wish i could get my damn 740tic doing that but i have a hard enough time getting it to do anything normal let alone tearing the suspension apart...

[klr142]

Very nice work Matt. Definitely something we should keep in mind here on TB with lots of people starting to make some power.

[945ti]

Sorry to drag this old bird up again, but my 240 is actually a different design back there. It is an 81, so not a 70s 240 with a 1031 axle fitted originally instead of a 1030 (it was a turbo originally). My trailing arm mounts are actually stuck to the sides of the frame rail, not with the sort of bracket on the bottom. With a little probing with the sandblaster, they appear to be welded and tack welded in some places. It is going to be interesting thinking up a good gusset for mine, but I'm not as worried about them shearing off like the ones pictured as much due to the change in mounting.

Some plate, through bolts through the rail, and then a gusset to the floor and also sill should make the car bend before that rips out in my case I'd hope.

I'll try to take some pics of my 80s 240, but it definitely looks different to me. Anyone want to venture a guess when the design was changed? Stealth? Since both matt's and YLD have 75 and 76 cars, and mine is an 81, it must be sometime between those dates I'd think.

[adrianpike]

After going and scoping my '78, it's trailing arm bracket is also integrated into the frame rail, sans bucket. I'm searching the archives now of a photo of 'em.

[Mark]

Verra cool, Matt. I guess I'd better be inspecting that area myself. I have an awful passenger side clunk I've attributed to bushings but all my other "to do" crap has had me ignoring it.

M.

[945ti]

Verra cool, Matt. I guess I'd better be inspecting that area myself. I have an awful passenger side clunk I've attributed to bushings but all my other "to do" crap has had me ignoring it.

M.

Your car has an open diff that isn't broken though, right? If you haven't broken the open diffy, and your car is an automagic, I'm going to wager they are probably fine and your lower trailing arm bushings are garbage like most volvos if you haven't replaced them. The ones in my turbo have like 1/4" of complete slop on a car with like 170K on it and nothing special about it.

I was surprised when I read this was an issue, since given the way John and Erik have driven John's 242 with the welded, I am surprised they wouldn't have trashed a mounting bracket.
I didn't really look at this thread when I did the rear bushings in John's 242, but as I was finishing the welding on the tranny tunnel and seat bracket area in mine I decided to blast off the bracket to begin reinforcing it and realized they were completely different than the ones pictured.

So, who has reinforced the later flavor? John Lane? Stealthfti? JVAB?