Bob -
Having been through that very thing myself, I can tell you that they shoughd
be TIGHT!
At least as tight as you feel comfortable with. Draw the bolts up evenly
with a 3/8" drive
socket and give them a good tug. Also, use a second (jam) nut on each U-bolt
leg to
provide a margin of safety. Using a 1/2" drive would probably be too much
and you
would risk breaking the U-bolt.
I have also found that it's a good idea to use the metal saddles between the
U-bolts
and the axle housing. These are available from Moss etc. for the MGA. They
prevent the U-bolt from chewing into the axle housing as the axle
(inevitably) rotates.
Dont worry about compressing the rubber too much. It's in there to give some
cushion, but not so much as to allow the axle to "float". When I removed my
old
ones, they were rock hard and paper thin.
Regards,
Lew Palmer
lew.palmer@uci.com
----------
From: mgs-owner
To: mgs
Subject: How tight U-bolts?
Date: Wednesday, November 15, 1995 11:25PM
I just put new rubber in the rear suspension of my TD. My question is how
tight should the U-bolts be? (The ones holding the leaf-spring/rubber
sandwich
to the rear axle) How far should the rubber be compressed? Thanks in
advance.
Bob Donahue " 50s FOREVER "
rdonahue@holli.com
1953 MG-TD under restoration
1971 MGB
|