Susoensions Of Rubber

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29051, 13 November 1959, Page 16

Susoensions Of Rubber

■ WHEREAS greatest develop. ; ■ ’ ment until recently was con. i centrated upon the engine, sus- : pension systems are now receiv- • ing great attention as engineers : endeavour to create units which : can withstand the strains ol : higher speeds, and give passen. : gers a smoother ''ride. Air re ■ cently seemed as though it woulc : be the Successor to the coil anc ; leaf spring, yet the greatest ad ! vances have, been made witl : rubber, at least on the smallei ■ cars. ■ Apart from a Cadillac model which used air suspension a few years ago, there have been nc

followers of the Citroen lead in air suspension. The Renault Dauphine, however, is effecting an interesting compromise. It has an auxiliary air-filled rubber cushion which relieves the load being cartied on the coil springs when the car is 'fully loaded. This is known as the “aerostable” system, and its advantage is that the flexibility of the coil springs ’decreases in the converse ratio to the increase of load. Thus the frequency of the suspension can be kept within strict limits regardless of how heavy the load. The small British Motor Corporation models—the Austin Seven and the Morris Mini-Minor —have adopted purely rubber suspension, simply because it was really the only answer. With the use of small wheels and a small wheelbase, the problem of guarding passengers from road shocks was a big one. After many trials, it was decided to break com-| pletely away from the conven-| tional suspension systems and devise another method. Rubber was employed because it was light, required little space, required no servicing, and provided good handling qualities. The inherent damping of the rubber allows for very low settings of the shock absorbers, giving them longer life. Suspension on the B.M.C, babies is independent on all wheels and, at the front, consists of unequallength wishbone arms with a tierod attached to the lower arm. The springing medium is a coneshaped rubber unit mounted vertically, connected to the upper arm and controlled by telescopic dampers.

The rear suspension is by a | single trailing arm on either side] to which the hub and brake assembly are fixed. Here again, rubber spring units are employed but, in this case, they operate in a horizontal plane. Telescopic dampers are also used at the rear. The rubber cone springs, another innovation, take up little space, are silent in operation of almost negligible weight . and With no greasing involved, reqtore thq jnlniinum degr;ee. of msintanane* t 2 .., >1