Lower Ball Joint Spacer Plate

[randomfactor]

Hiya

Does anyone know what's going on with the spacer plate on the front suspension, between the lower ball joint and hub assembly? Its horseshoe shaped with to bolt holes to locate it with the ball joint studs.

I've been busy dismantling the suspension struts and have lost one of mine. When I went to Toyota to get another, it wasn't even on their schematics. A couple of calls to breakers on ebay didn't turn up much either. They must have appeared/disappeared at some point with a model revision.

[lodgeman]

when i rebuilt my front suspension there was'nt any fitted!!!

[Marksman]

I know the ones you mean, when we rebuilt Lyn's SC it had one on one side but the other was missing, so nicked a spare of my parts car. Didn't really see the point of them though...

O.S.

[randomfactor]

It looks a bit like this. (Now I've got a little time to draw it)

/home/guy/plate.jpg

Maybe my car only had one as well, but I don't see much point in that?...

[randomfactor]

Fair enough, I can't put the drawing in the message then

[Miss Shigatsu]

you have to put in the full address/url of the image. with the http://www.myserver.com part at the beginning. then it should work fine.

[David Sleith]

Mine didn't have those. Can you not get away with doing away with it?

[Miss Shigatsu]

well, if you don't put them in, the forum has no idea where you're trying to point it to. doesn't know if you mean yahoo.com, addr.com, shegotsyou.com, your desktop, my desktop, the server where the forum is hosted... that's like putting a letter in the mail addressed simply to "David Sleith" with no street number, city, zip code or anything.

[randomfactor]

Oh yeah, lets try this then...

http://guynet.homeip.net/ebaypics/plate.jpg

[randomfactor]

Nope, that didn't work either

[Sponge Bob]

I can see the picture...?

Therefore it works...!

[adamh]

pssst.. i have the lucky horseshoe set-up

[Marksman]

This is the widget...

http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2006/02/76.jpg

Cheers,

Owen.

[lodgeman]

still didnt have one!!!:icon_bigg

[Driftin_AW]

actually everyone I know that has these on their cars notes that they only had it on one side...weird

anyway they look to be mini roll center adjusters, although being so thin I can't see how they could possibly have any noticable effect on handling

[randomfactor]

Its good news that the pic worked.

I'm sorted of happy that only one is fitted, that means I haven't lost something.

It must be something to level the car since the driver is offset from the centreline. It is a little thin to offset the anti-roll bar by any useful amount. It must have gone on the right hand side on mine, being rhd.

[Paul Woods]

i had some on my car,but i binned them cos they annoy me,cant see their purpose at all.

[Arkwright]

Ha! One more uniqueness to my little car - she has simetrical spacer widgets!

:eusa_danc

:beer:
Miss Owen

[Paul Woods]

its no good trying to throw them away,boomerang shaped!

[M2Rtin]

Nice hand drawn pic dude (randomfactor). Just rebuilding my front hubs too and my car didn't have any, don't see that it changes the geometry much (agree with Driftin AW) so I reckon as you can't throw it away you want to place it to one side and forget about it; all mass is evil, but unsprung mass even more so! On second thoughts, looking at the photo the only parts that take any bearing are just round the bolts so you could just replace it with a couple if washers if you wanted...

Good luck dude.

[Joshstix]

From what I understand the spacers were installed at the factory to even out alignment left to right. This is why you never find cars with them on both sides, either no spacer is needed or only one side needs to be changed to make it all even.

After the amount of punishment that the chassis has seen over the years I doubt it's really important whether you use them or not now.

[Paul Woods]

ah so thats what they are for! good info josh