The Ford Capri Laser Page

Hi all I'm after an axle location kit for my 85 2L buy all the ones on ebay are for single leaf where as mine has 3 ? Anyone point me in the right direction

You can't use them on multileaf springs. If you want to fit the kit you'll have to change to single leaf springs

Thanks for reply . Do I really need them on at 150bhp

Not really, they do improve things especially if you have the front strut brace as well but on the majority of my customer builds I just polybush everything and that helps a lot.
I stock all of the Superflex range of polybushes for the Capri.

Stanspeedautocare wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 4:56 pm Do I really need them on at 150bhp

The SVE department at Ford didn't consider it necessary to fit an axle location kit when they developed the 160 BHP 2.8 Injection....

Andrew.

Ive got one I bought a couple of years ago and have never fitted.

I later read they can cause damage to the leaf springs over time so decided to leave the thing in it's box to gather dust. Not sure why i thought it was a good idea at the time. More clutter to sell on really.

It makes the back end easier to control.....you can still get it sideways coming off a roundabout but without spinning it.

340truck wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2019 5:29 pm It makes the back end easier to control.....you can still get it sideways coming off a roundabout but without spinning it.

I fitted a genuine Skorpion X-frame on my 2.8i way back in the early 90s. It actually gave me understeer!
Easy solution.....give it more welly off roundabouts.
Expensive solution.................1" front ARB, 5/8" rear ARB, uprated -1" front springs, Skorpion strut brace.
Ended up with almost perfect balance and in the wet I could sometimes manage to 4-wheel drift it, but that was more luck than any skill on my part, and often involved carrying a spare pair of pants

Not_Anumber wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2019 10:38 am Ive got one I bought a couple of years ago and have never fitted.

I later read they can cause damage to the leaf springs over time so decided to leave the thing in it's box to gather dust. Not sure why i thought it was a good idea at the time. More clutter to sell on really.

They are great. I read something about them causing warping too but I can promise you that they do not, had mine fitted for 15 years now (x-frame), car gets plenty of abuse and springs are fine.

The guy who fabricated them said responded (in those care free halcyon days..) he couldnt see how they would cause damage considering they reduce the amount of play and strain on the components.

Who knows... the guy who was moaning about it might have fitted it wrong, had worn / crap springs / bushes to begin with..... we just dont know. Only way is to try it and find out for yourself. Im glad I did, it can keep up with anything in the corners now (in the dry mind!).

Bug wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2019 8:54 am

340truck wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2019 5:29 pm It makes the back end easier to control.....you can still get it sideways coming off a roundabout but without spinning it.

Expensive solution.................1" front ARB, 5/8" rear ARB, uprated -1" front springs, Skorpion strut brace.
Ended up with almost perfect balance and in the wet I could sometimes manage to 4-wheel drift..

*scribbles it down*

Yep I had 190 front springs - 1" on the Rat (I so miss that car) and Marham was always so much fun. One year in the wet the marshalls were marking the slides like strictly - but only for those of us that dared to go out.

Bolt on mods did not solve the Capri's handling problems any more than the "bags of cement" bollocks. But what they did do was make it easy to learn to control the car's foibles. Without the mods losing control was an occupational hazard of cornering at speed - often with disastrous results.

Aye Dave but you would be pushing to the limit & beyond on every corner eh...

Owners have fitted location kits on multi-leaves with good effect, it just needs longer clamp-plate bolts & setting up right. They do suit singles much better. I use an A-Frame.
It WILL reduce the tendency for the back axle to slip sideways on cornering and this is predominantly the effect of the forward bars - the rear halves of the main leaves behind the axle are on flexible rubber shackles at the back which can flop about all over the place so X-Frames aren't really necessary.
Detail: On hard cornering the tyres want to hold the axle on a steady curve but the weight of the body swinging outwards flexes the front section of each leaf spring so it twists the bush outwards at the bottom/inwards at the top thus also twisting the flat bar. The bodywork moves outwards in comparison to the axle putting sideways stress on traction, any dampness on the road or pushing beyond the inherent limit of tyre/road traction will cause the spring to snap back to its resting state. This throws the axle outwards and slides the tyres sideways.

nigecapri wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 9:26 pm Aye Dave but you would be pushing to the limit & beyond on every corner eh...

Owners have fitted location kits on multi-leaves with good effect, it just needs longer clamp-plate bolts & setting up right. They do suit singles much better. I use an A-Frame.
It WILL reduce the tendency for the back axle to slip sideways on cornering and this is predominantly the effect of the forward bars - the rear halves of the main leaves behind the axle are on flexible rubber shackles at the back which can flop about all over the place so X-Frames aren't really necessary.
Detail: On hard cornering the tyres want to hold the axle on a steady curve but the weight of the body swinging outwards flexes the front section of each leaf spring so it twists the bush outwards at the bottom/inwards at the top thus also twisting the flat bar. The bodywork moves outwards in comparison to the axle putting sideways stress on traction, any dampness on the road or pushing beyond the inherent limit of tyre/road traction will cause the spring to snap back to its resting state. This throws the axle outwards and slides the tyres sideways.

Hi Nige,
Agree with all your description of how the axle moves etc. I read somewhere that the Mk1 on multileaf spring could move the axle a whole inch out from the centre line if you pushed it hard. Hitting a bump mid-corner would allow the axle to jump back into line, usually followed by a swift trip to the scene of the accident!!

When I went to see Roger Shailes (Skorpion), all those years back, in Cambridge, we had a long discussion about why he made an X-frame.
His theory (and I think it was only a theory, but I followed his reasoning), was that when you accelerated hard, the front of the diff nose had a tendency to try to move upwards, imparting a twisting motion on the spring shackles. (Mr Newton would explain it all - wheels trying to spin forwards, so axle trying to turn backwards - equal and opposite force, etc, etc, etc.)
The A-frame took a lot of this force and moved it to the front end of the spring, increasing the lever effect and making the spring more able to resist it.
Adding a second bar to the back should therefore mean that, instead of applying all the force to the front end of the spring, 50% of it is now taken to the back. This means that the point loads where the bars clamp to the frame would be halved.
The lever effect would remain the same but spread between two points on each spring.
Having only used an X-frame, I cannot make a direct comparison to the A-frame, but for the additional outlay and the effect it had on my car, I thought it was always worth the money.

Good point there Martin.
I've only used the A-Frame on my cars. Even with single leaves on a Mk3 the axle can move an inch or more. I had a nice black mark on my exhaust where the body would move to the left on hard right cornering & the tyre would catch the pipe. It took a while to find the source of that noise.
I also used to get axle-tramp sometimes when pulling away hard, it used to make the back tyres skip repeatedly & the whole car juddered. Fitting the A-Frame did help.

With all due respect it's not the car that don't handle, it's the man/woman sitting behind the wheel that can't handle the car, it's like these old wifes tales about putting concrete in the boot, why would you add weight to a car you want to go quick in?

Wayne

Wayne buddy , I had a 2.5l diesel van for work ,in spite of the fact the engine wouldnt pull your foreskin back it went better ,quicker overall with two 25kg bags of cement in the back ( I needed the cement for a different thing all together.......a pleasant surprize ). I have a toyota wagon that also rides better with weight in the back .
This fine automobile (that you speak of ) that cant be handled by the man/woman sitting behind the wheel ..........dont spose its a Reliant Robin or maybe a Chev Corvair ( if it was a rear engined Porsche you maybe on to something )

My unused A frame is for sale if anyone wants to make a sensible offer for it. Cant think i'l ever use it now.

Not only is the Capri a beautiful automobile it also appears to separate the men from the boy's I guess

Mr B wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:48 pm Not only is the Capri a beautiful automobile it also appears to separate the men from the boy's I guess

Well I guess the fact is that we are not all driving gods.

Maybe you and Lewis Hamilton have the reactions to deal with an axle suddenly jumping 1" back into line when you hit a bump mid-corner, but us mere mortals would rather add on the little bit of extra metal that keeps it straight in the first place.

Of course, if the car isn't driven hard enough then the axle doesn't move out of line and all is well.

(I'm searching in vain for an emoji that shows someone rolling a hand grenade into a room and running away )

Mc Tool wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:03 am Wayne buddy , I had a 2.5l diesel van for work ,in spite of the fact the engine wouldnt pull your foreskin back it went better ,quicker overall with two 25kg bags of cement in the back ( I needed the cement for a different thing all together.......a pleasant surprize ). I have a toyota wagon that also rides better with weight in the back .
This fine automobile (that you speak of ) that cant be handled by the man/woman sitting behind the wheel ..........dont spose its a Reliant Robin or maybe a Chev Corvair ( if it was a rear engined Porsche you maybe on to something )

MC old friend,

Your statement above has surely just destroyed around a 100 year's automotive engineering design.

You believe that making a vehicle heavier helps it go faster, so all these years car manufacturers like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche etc.had it all wrong in trying to make their cars as light as possible, in actual fact they should have made them as heavy as a Sherman tank!

Wayne