Overslung Rear ARB

[mont7]

I am in the process of fitting a rear ARB to my '98 Caterham. My frame doesn't have the bosses in the lower frame rail, so it's the ARB that runs over the differential, and attaches to the bottom of the inertia reel boxes.

The droplink attaches to the bolt which attaches the radius arm to the DeDion. The bolt has been tapped to accept the droplink. The alignment of the arms on the ARB to the radius arm bolt doesn't seem to give a clear indication of the "correct" way to put things together.

Leaving the radius arm bolt with the head on the inside puts the droplink at a more severe angle than I would have expected. If I put the droplink on the outside of the ARB arm, things line up a bit better, but then I have to reverse the direction of the radius arm bolt. I'm worried that with the bolt end on the inside, it may hit the corner of the boot if the suspension bottoms out. I think the bolt head may have already hit the corner, and the bolt end would extend further inside.

I've attached some pictures that may help, although they don't give a good sense of the angle of the droplink.

Any thoughts/suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.

Steve

[sdcat]

Steve,

I had the same problem with clearance on mine, with the bolt contacting the body at full soft setting. I ended up flipping some things around to gain clearance, and did have a pretty severe angle on the pivot, but seems to work fine. I'm traveling today, but will take some pictures tomorrow of how mine is currently set up.

Justin

[mont7]

Justin - Pictures would be great, thanks. Just confirmation that you experienced the same type of alignment issues is helpful.

Which way did you install the mounting blocks? Thick one on top or bottom?

Steve

[sdcat]

Steve,

Here are some pics of how we mounted the rear sway bar. These are from the passengers side. You can see that the pivot is at quite an angle, but still seems to move freely, and with this configuration doesn't hit the side panel.

Justin

[mont7]

Justin - Thanks for the photos. That's the orientation that I preferred, so it's good to know that you haven't run into any problems.

Thanks again.

Steve