Coppins Pontiac, come on Bruce!!

[Bruce302]

Cheers Steve, The original parts are very important to me, each one has some story to tell, and they all go to make up the big picture.

The Watt linkage has a real neat centre, cut from an alu block, which in itself is not unusual, but the pivot could well have been a greased bush, or even nylon like the spring eye bushes, but it is a ball bearing with a flanged outer. I took it to the bearing shop and the number came up as "Special Order" from the factory. I don't know if it was unique to these race cars, I doubt it, but where they were being built was very close to the Southern California aero industry, and they (the car builders) would often go and see what trick items they could obtain. There were supposed top be essentially production cars, but it's all in the detail. So it could be some part of an ordinary old aircraft.

Here is a pic of the centre pivot and bearing, with the bearing cover, held on by 6 drilled head, nyloced nuts. It does not want to come loose. The system had some downfalls in that the rear roll centre was not constant, but the T/G cars were regarded as good handlers none the less.


These are the rear spring eye bushes, alu with a steel insert, and a nylon sleeve between them, just like the front A arms (and incidentally the brake and pedal bushes which is probably where they got the idea)
Each bush is numbered, starting at the front of the car and working back, if you pick up any bush you know which car, and which position. No doubt when they were working on several cars at once the parts could have been easily mixed up.



Bruce.