I have the GD front uprights on my car. Some may be aware that one broke at Loton Park earlier this year. I am the only person I know of who has actually fitted them to the car. The cause of the failure remains a mystery but Andy Burrows was a true gent and sent me a replacement FOC as this was the first he had known of ever failing. However I also think that my car is the heaviest car they have been fitted to as the GD Lola and Cobras are about 100 kg lighter. Maybe I am too close to the edge of the envelope?
There have been comments about the porosity of these castings and also the skinny nature of some areas. I do not have the engineering know how to make a genuine comment here.
However I have found them to be reasonably ok to fit and they do give a good suspension set up. I run proper Ackerman angles now and can tell there is a difference.
The ali rears that GD do are not straight forward one for one repalcements. The pick up points are all wrong for GTDs. I have an idea on how I would get round that but having a front upright failure just makes me more cautious on fitting them. I was a guinea pig for the front as I had little choice with my steel upright braking (!) but I don't want to be guinea pig at the rear for the time being.
Frank has a set of TVR front uprights that look good that he showed me one visit. They feel heavier than the GD ones but all the principles in fitting them are the same. They would be as easy to fit as the GD ones but use different bearings. A casual glance makes me think the suspension set up would be fine as the overall height is simialar to what is currently used.
However this does not help people with the ali rears being required. As far as I am aware only GD and Ray Christopher supply ali rears. I do not know about what RF do so apologies, Robert, if you have some.
As to bearings used, all the above use the Granada bearing which has proven to be a good bearing. I am not aware of any bearing failures and they are currently available easily in the UK. Sorry guys, don't know what avaialbility there is in the US or other remote parts of the world! The TVR uprights I mentioned above would clearly use a TVR bearing although I would suspect that it is out of someones parts bin to save TVR designing their own. However, whose parts bin? Also even less available and more costly than Granada bits perhaps.
On Ray's rear uprights, you may have to do a little machining to get clearance for the CV joint. It depends on which cv joints you use but should be a easy do job, if you know you need to do it in the first place!
As far as I am aware all the standard GTD cv joints and adapters are used on each variety of upright. On Franks steel rear uprights you need a shorter drive shaft so not a standard item there, but they can be made easily, just cost a fraction more.
Malcolm
[ September 13, 2002: Message edited by: Malcolm M ]
[ September 13, 2002: Message edited by: Malcolm M ]