Technical Play in front suspension

[5004ever]

Hello to all.
Our 1.2 lounge lives a very very hard life. We use it for deliveries 6 days a week, early in the morning (3am-7am), 240 clients every day, up and down kerbs, buzzing around housing estates, lots of 3 point turns (2 point really) lots of quick getaways, 88km of that each day.

We change the oil and filters by choice each 3 months, but have to change front tyres and brake pads every 4 months due to wear.

Recently a passenger side drop link broke free of the strut, destroying the bracket on the strut.

We replaced the strut, drop link and a worn wheel bearing and discovered that when the car was on the lift, the whole suspension could be lifted up and down, it was nowhere near tight in the chassis at the top of the strut. We know that a little bit of float is allowed, but this was too much.

We had to drive it like this for a week, but courage ran out and we took it apart today.

We had assembled it correctly, but we put it back together again, still lots of movement. We inverted the top domed was her for a temporary fix.

The last 4 components in the assembly that are in a fixed position are the large rubber mount, the big nut that secures this, the domed top hat washer and the nyloc nut.

We noticed that the large nut sits proud of the chassis, so we could never make things tight in normal assembly.

Is it possible that the rubber mount has chafed and become thinner, therefore pushing everyone higher in the chassis ?

 

[chris3234]

Did you fit a new top mount? Can't. Tell from your post?

 

[5004ever]

Did you fit a new top mount? Can't. Tell from your post?

A few years ago I fitted new top bearings on both sides, but no, have never replaced the top rubber mounts.

 

[John202020]

Given the hard life I honestly recommend replacing EVERYTHING on the front suspension, lower control arms, drop links, shocks, springs, top bearings( come complete with rubber mount) mounting cups and dust shields, I did this to our car as we are going to keep it as long as we can.
Use good quality branded parts like Lemforder control arms and Bilstein shocks say?

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I'm trying to understand what you mean by "being able to lift the whole front suspension up and down". I think what you mean is that, with the car supported on it's chassis, so "wheel free" ie. wheels not on the ground, you have found that you can lift the struts up and down a little in relation to the top mountings in the inner wings? If so then this is absolutely normal.
I remember being somewhat mystified by this when I first ran into it. In my younger days I was used to working on McPherson Strut suspension which had the top mounts securely bolted to the inner wing towers (Ford Cortina Mk1 and 2 for instance). Ours are not like that. The top mounts are not bolted in place and stay in place due to the weight of the vehicle bearing down on them. When you jack the car up so it's wheels come off the ground the struts and their top mounts drop down but are restrained from dropping right out of the towers by the large retaining washer which is held to the strut by the big nut on the damper rod. you can see this setup here in this picture I took of one of Becky's top mounts after I'd done a suspension rebuild:





These pictures were taken with the weight on the wheels. If I jacked it up the strut would drop until the washer rests on the top of the tower and performs it's function of stopping the strut damper rod actually just dropping out of the inner wing. When i first came across this way of doing it I found it very strange FIAT are not the only ones who do it this way and it seems to work fine.



Here's what the strut assembly looks like and you can see there's no fixing nuts/studs on the rubber top mount. The top mounts can and do degrade and the springs can loose tension which will result in the vehicle staring to look a bit down at the nose. Mine was like that but after I'd replaced springs, struts and top mounts she now sits nicely level.



Even with all the new parts though, if tou jack her up the top mounts drop in the inner wings until those big washers limit the travel. That's just how it's made! By the way, slaister some grease or other anti seize on the exposed damper threads above the nut to stop corrosion - make undoing it much easier if you ever have to do it again.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

A few years ago I fitted new top bearings on both sides, but no, have never replaced the top rubber mounts.

Now that's the wonderful thing about our forum. I didn't know you could buy just the bearings on their own! Mind you I've never tried to source them as I'd be doing the top mounts anyway if I was going to the bother of dismantling the strut assembly.

I'm still trying to understand about this excess "lift" the OP talks about and I'm wondering if you've resolved the problem?

If we knew where you are OP, maybe a forum member could pop along and give you an opinion?

 

[John202020]

New rubber top mounts now come with a integral bearing, or at least the Lemforder ones I got did.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

New rubber top mounts now come with a integral bearing, or at least the Lemforder ones I got did.

As did the ones I bought from S4p: https://www.shop4parts.co.uk/?name=store&op=Product&ProdID=1746