Sometime in 1969 I was driving my '59 Bugeye on the freeway at 65 mph on the way
to Riverside, CA. I was in the right hand lane, traffic was very light - thank
goodness. All of the sudden - BOOM - and the weeds in the center divider were
flying over my hood. I got the car stopped without hitting anything and got out
to see what was wrong. All 3 bolts that held the left front shock to the body
had
broken and the whole wheel assembly had collapsed inward. Upon closer
inspection
I found that 2 of the bolts had been cracked about halfway through for some
time -
corrosion evident. The third bolt evidently just got tired of carrying the
whole
load and snapped cleanly off. Just to show how long ago that was the total
charge
for towing and repair was $22.00.
I would recommend that you take a good look at those bolts as well as making
sure
they are torqued properly.
Rick
'59 Bugeye (shock bolts tight)
Bob Spruck wrote:
> Thought some of you might want a friendly reminder/warning about front
> lever action shock absorbers on our Spridgets working loose.
>
> Today I went through my '67 Midget vintage race car in preparation for the
> Atlanta Historic Races in two weeks. One of my procedures is to tighten or
> torque every bolt and nut on the underside and the topside of the car.
> After a race the three bolts that hold the front shocks to the body are
> always looser than the 40 ft.lbs I set them to before the race. Since the
> shock is really the upper suspension arm, they take a lot of abuse on a
> race weekend and always need re-torquing before the next race. Found them
> to be moderately loose, so I re-set them. No problem, to be expected.
>
> Sitting in my garage next to the race car is my '72 street Midget. Just for
> the heck of it I thought I'd check it's shocks while I had my torque wrench
> set for 40 lbs. I was shocked (pun intended) to find out they were
> seriously loose. Probably in the 25-30 range, not the 40 they should be.
> And this just from normal street driving.
>
> You all might want to check yours sometime soon and put it on your list of
> things to check frequently.
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