1800: Shock punched through mounting. Safe to drive?

[Rosco1800]

Hi folks

Following an historic rally, we found our front shock has punched through its mounting on the front suspension cross member. (See attached photos).

Do you reckon this is safe to drive carefully to a garage to get it fixed?

Thanks, Rob.

[Ron Kwas]

Rob;

That is quite typical a fatigue failure mode of the front Shock Tower, after likely millions of impacts from the Shock...since there is really no place for the shock to go and foul (it will stay pretty much where it has wound up, below its normal position) I would say it is easily OK to drive the car to a shop for welding repair (obviously "limped" ,and not at rally speeds).

I recommend a band repair as shown here:


Cheers

[Groundes-Peace]

I had this exact problem three months ago.
Very noisy but OK to drive to get to garage for welding reinforced top area of the suspension mount.
I had to drive for nearly 200 miles to get to someone to fix this for me.
I understand it is a common problem.
Here in the UK we have a huge amounts of pot holes in the road surface.
I must have hit one too many!

Now have both sides reinforced, so hopefully ok for another 50 years!

[Rosco1800]

Thank you both for the responses.

We'll drive it and get it to the garage. We'll get them to weld plates all around, given this is quite a common problem. We are planning more rallies, so it won't hurt to have some 'hardening' of the suspension.

[classicswede]

It is fairly common for them to break there.
You really want to do all the bracing on the lower wishbone mounts etc if it is being used hard

[Derek UK]

Suggest you get in touch with Rob at Amazon Cars. He may have preformed plate ready to be welded in. He can also advise re extra reinforcement as Dai suggests. I think the lower wishbones can be plated too.

[Derek UK]

Suggest you get in touch with Rob at Amazon Cars. He may have preformed plates ready to be welded in. He can also advise re extra reinforcement as Dai suggests. I think the lower wishbones can be plated too. He is probably close enough to you for the job to be done there if that suits both of you.

[Rosco1800]

Thanks Derek.

Good idea to talk to Rob (I met him at the Hughes rally last weekend). He's currently making us a sump guard, plus I contacted him about 3D printing a fuse box cover for the late 1800s. It's also likely we'll buy some progressive suspension springs from him next week.

It's off to Templar Classics (Slough) tomorrow morning. I'll see what they have to say about it. They have done "bottom up" restorations on these cars so will hopefully have a good handle on this issue. I think I'll also give Rob a call when I order the springs to talk about any specialist upgrades for lightly rallied cars.

[Groundes-Peace]

It was Simon, of Templar Classics who fixed my issue.
This work was done in June.
A great relief not more serious.

[Derek UK]

"I met him at the Hughes rally last weekend" He said he was rallying in Kent at the weekend in his last vlog so I wondered if you was at the same rally. Convenience is probably a factor for you but with Rob you will rally experience and I'm sure he has done this job before.