(G) strut brace!

Hi everyone hope your'e all having a good festive! a couple of weeks back i purchased front and rear omp braces from chris (unoracer) fitted the front after a little fettling with the grinder on the strut top caps, to make fit sweet, then moved onto the rear and the threaded top of the shock seems too short (non standard spax shocks) ive looked at a few pics and they seem to just bolt on top, when i position mine on top theres no thread to put the nuts on, has anyone got a close up of theres fitted or had the same prob, Ant!

This is the closest I could find Ant. It's one of Dunc's UT in the UT restoraton thread:

http://www.fiatforum.com/gallery/dat...um/UT_0061.jpg

However, what might be an idea is to adapt/ weld a plate onto the brace so it bolts onto the two shock mounting points on each wheel arch rather than the shock absorber top bolt. It's supposed to be bracing the shell, which it won't do very well as the shock tops are mounted in rubber! I don't understand why OMP don't adapt their rear brace so it braces the shell properly

Hi chas!! mine aint the same as that, i have 2 cylindrical tubes that slide over the threaded top, but is an inch or so short, prob rectified with the hacksaw! just wanted to know if anyone has had the same prob, might look into modifying it and adding extra plates to attach to the 2 bolts that hold the strut mount, i'l get a pic, Ant!

I've got the same thing (see pic).
It's doing a lovely job of bracing the garage floor. Beside it you see the bar from under the intercooler/oil cooler that serves a lot more purpose - protects the Uno Turbo from castrating itself - removed to save weight.

As Chas says, I can't see what real benefit this OMP strut brace gives. The two 'strut towers' serve no purpose in locating the axle beam, because the 'struts' are not struts (unlike at the front suspension). So bracing the rear strut towers seems like a waste of time.

I think a couple of tubes welded into an 'X' from the roof rails to the floor would have a lot more effect, especially if you could locate the bit of the floor where the rear beam bolts to. The main benefit would be that the tailgate would be less prone to popping open (does any other Uno Turbo driver have this perpetual problem?) I find the catch has to be specially-loose to allow the tailgate to 'jiggle' left and right, otherwise it just releases itself. I believe this is evidence of the shell flexing.

Of course you want the shell to have less flex for better handling, but who knows which parts will actually make a difference... that is the question. It seems like quite an undertaking to stiffen the whole bodyshell. I suspect the best way is to weld in a full jungle-gym (err, rollcage...)

-Alex

Thats the same omp brace as me alex! have you tried fitting it? is there enough thread to attach the nuts, when i first fitted the front brace i noticed a definate change in the feeling and handling and have turned the front shocks down to min to suit, and is great! now just want the rear on, it seems there are 2 different types of rear omp braces, i'm going to have a look at it later on and see what can be done, Ive not yet had the boot pop open on me , maybe? you could do with a new mech or catch, someone did tell me if i didnt get a front brace i would break the windscreen due to flexing etc, next job is the gearlinks, i have purchased a set from louie and am in the process of renewing the balljoints on the end with new uprated ones, combined with the b+m shortshifter should dramaticaly change the sloppy change at the mo! Did you change the balljoints on your links? new links are £37 each from fiat but are not that well made as they have to put up with the heat from the turbo, so im copying a set that are on a rally peugeot that are very similar, will take some pics cheers Ant!

Hi Ant, yes I did try fitting the rear strut brace (and yes, it did fit), but apart from a loss of boot space (folding down the seats became useless), I noticed no difference at all. And, I don't see why it would make any difference... it is only bracing the shock spindles together, and they are mounted in rubber.

Front strut brace is a different story and I would quite like one of those!

Rear tailgate - I have replaced the catch twice, and the hinges, and I have added a stronger return spring to the striker release lever, to ensure that when the tailgate is closed, the catch doesn't touch the release lever. After all this I still find that the catch will pop open as the tailgate moves (due to the body flexing), unless the striker is set to make the catch quite loose - this causes a horrible rattle but at least the catch doesn't pop open.

Gearchange - yes! I made up replacement links a long time ago with threaded bar and rod ends - BIG improvement. I also tried to replace the short diamond-shaped link that has three balljoints - I made something equivalent with rose joints - however that was less of a success as the rose joints couldn't swivel quite far enough to give the full lever throw, so I had to leave one of the pivots slightly loose. Over a year or two, this wore oval and negated the benefit. I suggest a genuine replacement only - I've got one off another Uno Turbo, bolted up properly, and it's working well - not much slack at all (most of the remaining slack is in the gearbox itself).

Gearbox oil (for this type of gearbox) makes a big difference! I found that flushing the gearbox with engine flush was useful. At the moment I'm running a synthetic 75W EP oil with a tube of Nulon (Australian) additive. I'd be interested to know what you're running. The standard 80W EP FIAT oil seems to get thick and sludgy with age. The other Uno gearboxes use a non-EP 90 oil.

Cheers,
-Alex

As Alex says the the rear strut brace is pretty much a mute point on whether it works. I'm with the "it makes no bloody difference to the handling at all" brigade, on these style of braces.

Years and years ago, when I used to run the UK Uno Turbo owners club, we used to use a company called "Autosensation" for various modded parts. One of the parts they produced was a re-designed top mount for the rear shock, which was made from a Nylon solid bush, clamped betwen two metal plates. (Rather than a single metal plate with a rubber donut bush glued to it). When the metal plate was bolted to the top of the arch, and with those style of strut braces being used, you could feel some improvement. Although the ride became even more jittery.