At 08:45 PM 1/30/05 -0500, Steven Clarke wrote:
".... having to use my forklift to hold my frame down so I could jack up my new Moss Motors leaf springs so that the rebound straps could be fitted. The leaf springs seem to have too much arc to them. .... Once all was hooked up, we lowered the rear end and as soon the jack was down the springs caused the rebound straps to completely split across the top on both sides."

The new leaf springs currently available have too much arch, which can cause the rear of the MGA to sit more than an inch too high (and sometimes a lot more). This problem has been around since at least 1989. I haven't seen much change in that situation in recent years, except that some springs are more "too tall" than others. But that's a subject for another time. The original rebound strapes were made of thick woven cotton web strap, looped and heavily stitched at the ends. These were originally plenty strong to serve the purpose for many years, but they were also prone to rot with time and would ultimately break. The ultimate failure could be either a break in the center or a split out at one end. Any MGA today either had these straps replaced or needs to have them replaced.

(Click for larger images)

For decades (at least since 1977) the replacement parts have been fabricated with similar web strap but also molded with a heavy rubber jacket for environmental protection and durability. I have a set of these on my car for nearly 20 years and 200,000 miles on the road, and they are holding up just fine. But some recent issue parts are apparently much weaker. These are probably made with much thinner webbing, and the thick rubber cannot make up for the lost strength.

Moss Motors does know about the faulty rebound straps and is (presumably) pursuing a solution. I will post another note here if/when there is any news.

Addendum March 9, 2005:

At 03:01 PM 3/9/06,Kelvin Dodd from Moss Motors wrote:
>At the time a number of straps were cut apart and inspected. They were found to have inadequate reinforcing. They were shipped back to the supplier in the UK.
>
>Another supplier was contacted and their product tested. Their straps still stretched more than we think they should, but did have reasonable reinforcement and did not break when installed.
>
>Unfortunately there are no specs that we can find of how elastic the original straps were, so it is difficult to determine whether the new ones are within spec or not.
>
>Kelvin.

Addendum March 9, 2007:

MORE JUNK? How about this for coincidence, exactly two years to the day?
At 08:05 AM 3/9/2007 -0600, Rick Schnittker wrote:
"I think the check straps Moss is selling are just for show. I had the car jacked up on the frame right behind the doors so the check strap was under stress because the weight of the axle and leaf springs were fully extended. It lasted less than 24 hours. The original one I removed, 47 years old probably, was still hanging on when I removed it."

This one has nothing to do with new over height leaf springs, as these are the original 47 year old springs, well settled. So two years on Moss is still selling junk check straps. They don't seem to get the idea that these are supposed to be heavy web straps with a rubber coating, not rubber straps with a fake web lining. So Moss has been notified again, but I have no idea if they will ever have these parts fabricated properly, or if they will ever bother to load test a sample from a production batch.

If the Moss excuse is that there were no origianal spec's, then they should write their own spec's. I have tried to tell them how to write the spec's and how to test the things, but still they won't bother. Apparently their primary form of product testing is still customer complaints, so LETS ALL GET TO COMPLAINING LIKE HELL. In my book parts that fail before they get to the road are entirely unacceptable. Also any management that will sell known suspect parts without testing for years after knowing the problem is guilty of customer fraud. Mince no words.

Another year on, as of Spring of 2008 I am no longer receiving notices of failure of these parts. Prior report from Moss Motors (noted above) is that the current parts have "more" internal webbing, and that they do not stretch as much as the prior parts when tested. Amount of stretch or breaking stength is not noted. Comment was made refering to lack of original specifications for this part. If no one is currently complaining it will be assumed that all is right with the world (until someone reports otherwise).