----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan M Gill" <rmgill@mindspring.com>
To: "Richard Notton" <Richard@fv623.demon.co.uk>; "Military Vehicles Mailing
List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 9:30 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] Track Shoes A follow-up and artillery for sale
> At 9:03 PM +0000 12/17/01, Richard Notton wrote:
> >Well known wheeled MVs with torsion bars are, but not limited to:
> >Austin Champ, Humber 1 ton truck, Humber Pig, Alvis Saladin, Saracen and
> >Stalwart.
>
> Huh?
>
> When I was up at Western Resources, Joe had the wheel station on a
> Saladin torn down for a rebuild (owners had let the hub run dry!!!).
> There were 4 very large vertical tubes that looked an awful lot like
> shock absorbers to me. The wheel station itself looked like and
> upscaled version of what is on the ferret (3 added
>
They are in fact two hydraulic shocks and two bump-rebound stops.
> Here is a picture of the wheel station on a Saracen.
> http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/lsm/dhmg/images3/10578.jpg
>
> Sure doesn't look like torsion bars to me (looks like a double
> wishbone suspension with extra bits).
>
Go to your referenced address, the tube bit projecting forwards very close to
the hull is the torsion bar cover tube, the cranked steering arm you see,
correctly never painted, is so bent to pass over the bar.
The bar itself is splined into the inner eye of the top wishbone.
The centre wheel station is slightly different, and rear is a reversal of the
front.
The means of retaining the wheel and allowing movement, in this case double
wishbones, has nothing to do with torsion bars per se, these are simply the
springs that operate suspension and are linear bars of steel as opposed to coil
or leaf springs.
>I thought those usually
> projected through the hull parallel to the wheel and anchored to the
> other side. Thus, when that wheel station was moved by terrain
> effects, the part on the wheel side moved with the wheel, and the
> part on the other side didn't, the bits in the middle twisting to a
> degree based on their distance from one to the other.
>
You are thinking only of a trailing/leading arm type of common tank/APC (FV432
or M113) layout where the torsion bars lie across the hull/chassis; the rear of
many Renaults are like this and similar to one tank/APC roadwheel, the wheels
necessarily have a slightly different wheelbase dimension side to side.
Where you control wheel movement with a wishbone arrangement the only sensible
and simple arrangement is to attach one end of the bar to a wishbone inner pivot
and the other to some point along the chassis/hull.
If you looked further back along the Saracen/Saladin/Stalwart you would see two
short lever arms between the rear and centre wheels with a big brass nut on a
thread to the hull (usually under a split rubber boot) that adjusts the rear and
centre wheel stations, and another between the centre and front that adjusts the
front.
Allow me to send you direct an explanatory drawing.
Richard
Southampton - England
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