Steering and ROSE joints

[Dennis Nicholas]

Dennis, I never had much success with rose joints on road cars. They are expensive and don’t cope well with road dirt. Different on a racing car, though. The other thing you might want to think about is that the spring loaded joints at the ends of the drag link ( come on, you knew what it was all along, really) are there for a reason.

Road dirt.......That was to be one of the questions....(but I forgot to ask)...I was thinking of some kind of boot covering each end.
Yep, understand role of springs/cups....just all seems a bit flimsy in my usage.

Really.......yes  

Dennis

[Stuart Giles]

ttps://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/images/assets/products/ge17c_skf.jpg

Presume when you say Rose Joints , you mean Rod Ends -Rose Joints are something slightly different.

Stuart....Thanks for the references.
Nomenclature ....I was going by what Wiki and several other sites called them.  What is the difference Rod end to Rose Joint?

Hi Dennis,
              An issue of nomenclature as you say.  When working on this stuff in the past, these were always referred to as Rose joints





Where as this type of thing would be referred to as a rod end



Being absolutely correct only joints manufactured by Rose Brothers should be called Rose Joints in the same way as anyone vacuuming the carpet with a device made by Electrolux or some other manufacturer shouldn't say that they're doing the  hoovering.

BTW, regarding the use of these on road cars, I converted most of the suspension and steering  on my road/competition A7 special in the early '80s. I have only recently changed those joints out due to them having some movement. There is an enormous range of qualities of these joints, the cheaper ones tend to be metal to metal, where road grit will cause a lot of wear. I used joints with an integral  Teflon/Kevlar (IIRC) interliner between the ball and joint body. These have stood up well to what must add up to considerable road mileage over the years.

[Geoff Halstead]

Also known as Heim Joints in my time.
Rubber boots are available for Rose Joints to protect against dirt/muck/salt ingress

Geoff - Nearly but not quite back to normal.

[Dennis Nicholas]

ttps://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/images/assets/products/ge17c_skf.jpg

Presume when you say Rose Joints , you mean Rod Ends -Rose Joints are something slightly different.

Hi Dennis,
              An issue of nomenclature as you say.  When working on this stuff in the past, these were always referred to as Rose joints





Where as this type of thing would be referred to as a rod end.



Being absolutely correct only joints manufactured by Rose Brothers should be called Rose Joints in the same way as anyone vacuuming the carpet with a device made by Electrolux or some other manufacturer shouldn't say that they're doing the  hoovering.

BTW, regarding the use of these on road cars, I converted most of the suspension and steering  on my road/competition A7 special in the early '80s. I have only recently changed those joints out due to them having some movement. There is an enormous range of qualities of these joints, the cheaper ones tend to be metal to metal, where road grit will cause a lot of wear. I used joints with an integral  Teflon/Kevlar (IIRC) interliner between the ball and joint body. These have stood up well to what must add up to considerable road mileage over the years.

Stuart, re the Rose joints nomenclature,  I think, like manufacturers, I would refer to your second photo as Rose Joints with threaded shank.  Others with a shank fixed to the inner swivel part instead of the hole for a bolt would be studded rose joint.

It is good to hear that your first lot lasted a long time on a road going car.  Do you have a makers name (and sizes) for the ones you used?
I have seen some on a manufacturers website that sound similar with a lining, and with seals either side plus a grease nipple.  But no prices mentioned.

GEOFF - Boots for joints......can you point me in direction of firm that does them please.

Dennis

[Alan]

Demon Tweeks sell boots for rose joints. About a fiver each.

[cardiffrob]

Cripes! A Fiver??

Cotton rag, piece of wire and some Linseed oil.

[Stuart Giles]

Hi Dennis,
             The rod ends I'm using on my car are this type and size.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-8-x-3-8-UNF-...25bfb6b579

As you can see the static load capacity of these particular joints is very high. Obviously, when you're driving the car, the joints will see dynamic or shock loads, not static, which means the capacity is much lower -the rule of thumb I have been given is shock load capacity is about 1/3 of the static load.

The joints with integral grease nipples tend to have metal liners as well metal balls, they usually have a relatively low load capacity and suffer quite high wear even when regularly greased. I don't use the boots on mine as they do trap any water or dirt that does get in. Giving  the joints a wipe over every now and then as Cardiffrob suggests is all the joints should need.

BTW, if any of the stuff I said about loadings is making you nervous about using 3/8 x 3/8 rod ends on your A7. here's a picture of my "other" special. Most of the joints on this are the same size and specification as the ones in the weblink. You might appreciate that the cornering forces generated are rather higher with a car running slicks that are 10 and 15" wide .

[Alan]

That looks interesting. Tell us more.

[Tony Press]

Hi Dennis,
             The rod ends I'm using on my car are this type and size.

BTW, if any of the stuff I said about loadings is making you nervous about using 3/8 x 3/8 rod ends on your A7. here's a picture of my "other" special. Most of the joints on this are the same size and specification as the ones in the weblink. You might appreciate that the cornering forces generated are rather higher with a car running slicks that are 10 and 15" wide .

Not an Austin Seven then    The R type MG  suspension looked quite spindly compared to the solid beam axles previously used.

Nomenclature- usually a peculiarly English trait to call things by the name of a particular manufacturer - Tannoy for loud speaker etcetera, but we often use a name we are used to - back in the 60's a friend called them Heim joints on his Nedloh special (Holden engined) until I supplied him with SKF Rod Ends.

Cheers, Tony.

[Stuart Giles]

That looks interesting. Tell us more.

Conscious this is an A7 forum, but as like all the best specials, there are a couple of A7 parts used in the build,  hopefully I'll be forgiven.

I built this car  in the early 1990's after I rolled my A7 special at Snetterton doing quite a bit of damage to the car and some (which did get better) to myself.

The car was built from scratch. I did the pattern making and machining on the various special castings -bellhousing, inlet manifolds etc. and made the moulds and the fibreglass panels for the bodywork. The Motor is a 4.5 litre TVR Tuscan Challenge motor with 320 BHP and 340 ft lb torque; the car weighs 425 KG. The transaxle is a hybrid using bits from Renault UN1 and 369 units  and is fitted upside down in the car. I use the car for sprints and have done some hillclimbs in it -basically I have discovered that the car is a lot faster than me, but it is enormous fun to drive, and if I do tip it over it shouldn't hurt so much as doing it in a 7 with no rollover protection. here are a few photos of the car.