I love my car but.....

[Phil N]

In Germany the Westfield developed a mystery knocking noise coming from the rear which happened every now and then, we decided it wasn't anything life threatening at the time and just turned the music up in the headphones and carried on enjoying ourselves. Last night I finally decided to try and find out what it was, to get there wasn't easy...

To remove the boot box you have to remove the seat belt eyelets...
To remove one of the seat belt eyelets you have to remove the roll bar...
To remove the roll bar you have to remove the rear roll bar supports...

Finally exposed the issue, one of the ARB bolts had sheered off so allowing lateral movement, simples... NOT

To remove the bolt that holds the bracket which holds to ARB you have to remove the fuel tank...

I gave up at that point and just unbolted the ARB and took it off, along with the front ones that Germany also claimed.

You'd of thought the Westfield should be pretty close after 30 years and tens of thousands built/sold but no, it's far from it.

[graham b]

Both Stevo and ken have removed these because of problems...
Both were too stiff and caused chassis / weld cracks.
Ken's westie is at the westfield factory having a complete new front chassis welded on.

[Fury1630]

I never liked ARBs - a bit of a sticking plaster solution IMHO. A road seven type car shouldn't really need them.

[andyf]

I never liked ARBs - a bit of a sticking plaster solution IMHO. A road seven type car shouldn't really need them.

+1

[SteveRST]

Ken's westie is at the westfield factory having a complete new front chassis welded on.

Hey G. Thought he had these issues 4+ years ago?

[nelmo]

I never liked ARBs - a bit of a sticking plaster solution IMHO. A road seven type car shouldn't really need them.

For the uninitiated - ARB?

[graham b]

Ken's westie is at the westfield factory having a complete new front chassis welded on.

Hey G. Thought he had these issues 4+ years ago?

Yes the issue with the car being very stiff..IE. hardly any movement on trying to bounce the car.
Is damper related...but the chassis cracking is recent

[graham b]

I never liked ARBs - a bit of a sticking plaster solution IMHO. A road seven type car shouldn't really need them.

For the uninitiated - ARB?

ANTI ROLL BAR

[nelmo]

I never liked ARBs - a bit of a sticking plaster solution IMHO. A road seven type car shouldn't really need them.

For the uninitiated - ARB?

ANTI ROLL BAR

Ah, gotcha - many thanks...

[Fury1630]

For the uninitiated - ARB?

I'm by no means a suspension expert, but the little I've read on the subject suggested that a suspension system designed with the right geometry on a car with a low centre of gravity shouldn't need any anti roll bars. But most tin tops are designed from the passenger's point-of-view, so the suspension has to fit in a certain amount of space = imperfect geometry, & the roof is high to give a "light & airy feel" so the C of G is high. Anti roll bars are then used to tune some of the deficiencies out.

On a race car they can be used to tune the car to a particular track.

A seven is designed around the suspension so the geometry should be good, the C of G is about as low as you can get & there's little point tuning the set-up for a particular corner on the road so the ARB is less of an advantage. They also have downsides, as the outside suspension compresses in a corner, the ARB is trying to lift the inside wheel - not to serious at the front, but it's reducing traction on the inside at the rear, so then you need a limited slip diff to control wheelspin & it's all more weight, more complication & more expense.

They have their uses, but a properly set up road seven shouldn't need them.