Morris Minor Owners Club

A sprite 1275 ring gear is the one to go for. Its the same size as the 1098 but with a chamfer. This stops the starter fouling the ring gear when it is dissengaged.

You should still be able to lock up at least the front wheels in the dry without the servo. I have heard a disconnected servo can add weight to a pedal. It's popular in some car circles to remove them and this is where I have heard of the heavier pedal. I've never experienced it myself. Servos on st...

Jetex silencers are superb. When I made up an exhaust for an old Beemer I had one of their mid silencer it damped out the noise and reverberation of two cheap stainless items that came with the car. It was also totally straight through. What is the aim of the exhaust? Why not run one large oval sile...

The pre '67 MGB housing is a better angle but is designed for a larger diameter hose!

Rumour has it a 948 crank can be machined to accept 803 rods and that Leyland did this. I can't confirm this though. I have seen a 'hefty' 803 crank before though but I can't tell if it was a home brew. I can't help thinking power would be very miserable and you would need to keep gearing relatively...

BMCEcosse,

are you trying to source bits for a small bore economy engine? If so why not use an 803cc engine?

What pistons are you going to use, the most common failing on a supercharged engine seems to be the pistons used breaking up or becoming holed under relatively small amounts of detonation which seem inevitable when using a carb and dizzy and setting up using trial and error. I would have thought onl...

I think the point of the vented cap was to allow a small amount of air to be drawn through the engine so it could clear moisture more effectively. Which makes sense as the breathing system has to draw condensation from the top of the engine down into the crankcase and out through the timing cover! E...

The tapping is probably related to the timing cover. If a duplex chain has been fitted it can fowl the timing cover splash guard and this needs to be ground off, they can also fowl other parts of the cover. You'll need to run the engine to hear for this as turning by hand will not make a load enough...

Haha I know the feeling, sometimes being the most able isn't such a good thing!

I'm dangerously close to an MOT now, just sorting minor issues and electrical gremlins now. I'll let you all know when there's a nice green piece of paper for 'Pete'

Is the servo mounted on a tie plate or the bulkhead? They can make bleeding a nightmare if they've been mounted on the bulkhead because it causes a high point as others have stated.

Well at least that's one back up driver!!

No pictures yet but the weldings coming on nicely and I just have the offside sills and one small repair on the chassis leg to complete.

Well I'll have a spare alternator as well as many other parts. I don't plan on leaving this one in Europe like so many rally participants.

At the end of May my good friend Lee and I will be taking part in a charity 'banger run' to Croatia taking place over 4 days. The budget for the vehicle is £250. Originally we were going to use an e30 BMW but the sale fell through. Luckily a car was donated by ESM albeit with out an engine and in ne...

New Lucas TVS distributors have been available for a while now. Asx for the advance curves they're probably copies of thr Aldon distributors.

Why not just use hemerite? If there's one thing its good for is painting engines. It usually adheres really well as long as you get the block really clean. Just don't use a primer coat before hand.

I had a Kenlowe fan for years, they specify quite a small fan for the Minor. However the amount of air they move is incredible, a short blast will pull temperatures right down even on the hottest days. It also makes the car run a lot quiter at higher road speeds as the fan isnt running constantly.

SAE 15 is about the grade the dampers were originally filled with. Penrite have done their homework on this and the reps tend to be very knowledgable about lever arms. Just because BMC said the shocks could be filled with SAE20 doesn't mean they were originally, maybe they just realised it was more ...

The supplier admitted that the Traveller springs had a shallower height set on them than the saloon or van springs. We exhaustively checked all aspects of the geometry, the car sat with less than 1" clearance between chassis and bumpstop unloaded, and sank noticeably with 8 stone passenger in ...

Just depends on one's ability to perform a good job, as so many mods we see are simply poor 'lashups'

Unfortunately that usually seems the way, especially with cars like the Minor. Unfortunately cheap (relatively) cars often attract cheap people.