Restoring an MGB, Mustang or Porsche 911? You’re in luck: The world offers countless resources, including marque experts, shop manuals and YouTube videos.
Our Elva sports racer doesn’t enjoy that institutional knowledge–not even a sliver of it, as the factory built only about 30 examples. As a result, every step of the restoration process has been a trek into the unknown. Fortunately, we’ve one important ally: the Elva register.
Even so, we’ve had to become part restorer, part archeologist. We had to get inside the heads of the car’s designers. Elva might have built the body and frame, but it didn’t have the resources for many of the smaller components required to bring a race car to life–things like bearings and brakes.
So which parts bins would Elva have picked from when building this Mk VI racer? Our quest was to find out. We summoned our inner detective as our attention turned to restoring the rear suspension.
But did we even have all the pieces? After all, our Elva came to us in a sad state. It hadn’t turned a wheel in years, and parts were missing and worn out.
We laid out everything that came with the car and compared it to old pictures. Good news: We had almost all the components needed to rebuild the rear suspension.
While we had the hard parts required to mount the rear wheels to the chassis, we faced something that looked flimsy, yet, judging by the car’s successful competition record, worked well on track. The rear suspension featured magnesium uprights attached via lower A-arms and long, spindly trailing arms. Fixed-length half-shafts effectively formed the upper attachment points, while Koni dampers kept everything in check.
We were missing one thing, though: the inboard rear drum brakes. Since they mount to the transmission, we chose to kick that can down the road and deal with it another time.
1. Since we couldn’t just ring the Elva factory for restoration advice, we had to hit the stacks. Some digging revealed a favorable review of the Elva MkVI in the April 1962 issue of Sports Car Graphic. A photo of the rear suspension helped guide this part of our restoration.
2., 3. Once we knew that we had all the parts for the rear suspension–rusty and dirty as they were–we inspected and inventoried everything. Crack checking told us that everything could be reused once media-blasted, powder-coated and serviced. The trailing arms, for example, would get new rod ends sourced from Aurora Bearing. We’d fit fresh U-joints in the half-shafts.
4. Blast Masters media-blasted our suspension components before powder-coating them. We normally don’t powder-coat race car suspension pieces–the finish can hide cracks–but we plan to use this car more for exhibition events than hardcore racing.
5. Our suspension parts, like this half-shaft, looked new after powder coating. We could see how this whole thing would start to go back together.
6., 7. Magnesium goes gray when unfinished, and we wanted to duplicate that look for our ultra-rare suspension uprights. We figured stainless steel-looking paint would best capture that natural gray finish. Before painting the uprights, we blasted and crack-checked them as well. We found suitable wheel bearings locally and first installed the new races.
8. Without any factory manual to follow, we simply used conventional carbuilding wisdom when installing those new wheel bearings: We tightened the nut until the bearing spun freely but didn’t exhibit any lateral or back-and-forth movement.
9. More detective work: The bushings that fit between the rear uprights and the A-frame were identical to Spitfire trunnion bushings. We bought a Delrin kit from Spit Bits.
10. Then we could fit new wheel studs. The nut that secured the entire hub assembly used proper Whitworth threads.
11. Time to assemble the entire rear upright. The axle looks to be freezing because it is: The slight shrinkage facilitates installation of the bearing. We realized we were missing a tubular spacer but were able to duplicate it with our lathe.
12. And good news: The entire hub went together easily.
13. In some cases, though, reverting to stock didn’t seem like the best move. This rod, formed in cold rolled 1018 steel, linked the A-arm to the magnesium upright. It looked a bit too spindly for our tastes. Plus, it was beat up and sported compromised Whitworth threads. This part isn’t visible when installed, so we decided to find a modern replacement.
14.,15. Know when to call in an expert: We had new rods built by machinist Micah Mummaw at Falcon Industries in Daytona Beach, Florida. His replacements are built from stronger 316 marine-grade stainless steel and feature common SAE threads. Total bill for the job: about $200.
16. We also needed to replace our original, corroded rod ends with new pieces. Instead of grabbing some imported, inexpensive ones, we again called John McCrory at Aurora Bearing Company. This company specializes in motorsports hardware and had everything we needed in stock. Note that this isn’t a time to save a buck or two. (Head to our website for specifics on sizes and threads.)
17. It took some trials and tribulations, but we were able to reassemble each corner of our Elva’s rear suspension while fitting our freshened Koni dampers. The suspension looks primitive by today’s standards, but we wanted to restore what we had, not redesign it.
Next up, we’ll turn to the driveline–a Coventry Climax FWA engine paired with a super-rare and now rebuilt Hewland MKIII five-speed transaxle. But before we can tackle that, we have some more frame work to do….
Comments
wspohn
SuperDork
2/19/22 11:38 a.m.
Looks like they were much more sensible that TVR was. When I built my Grantura Mk 3 as a race car, I found that the rear hib carrier had two small 'ears' that stuck down into which you would stick a taper pin, threaded on the end once the long tie bar that held the A arms to the carrier were assembled. They were to stop the lower rod from turning.
Unfortunately, the 'ears' were very close to the rim and if even a small rock got caught between them it just cracked the ear off. If you went off track, that was almost guaranteed. Looks like Elva foresaw the issue and had a smooth alloy casting that wouldn't break in off road excursions.
I had to get an alloy tube and heliarc it to the smoothed off broken bits - looked just like the Elva article when finished and never gave any trouble.
Did the Elva use suspension bits from Triumph? My upper front trunions were Triumph Herald (slightly different from Spitfire) and the steering rack was shortened Triumph (for bump steer purposes). I think that quite a few sports racers used their uprights and other suspension bits.
In reply to wspohn :
Yes, there seemed to be Triumph parts, at least in the front suspension. I have built Lotus, TVR and others and Triumph parts are common in all of these cars.
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