Bottom trunnion purchase tip.

[philthehill]

I have recently purchased some NOS UNIPART bottom trunnions. These were advertised as Marina bottom trunnions but in fact were Morris Minor bottom trunnions. These UNIPART bottom trunnions are of very good quality and come with MOWOG branded seals. They are covered in wax, wrapped in waxed paper and in genuine UNIPART boxes. The MOWOG seals are perfect.
The tip being - look out for UNIPART Marina bottom trunnions as not all advertised Marina bottom trunnions are Marina bottom trunnions. To identify whether Minor or Marina - check the distance from the trunnion pivot pin to the swivel pin hole and if the trunnion pin and swivel pin holes look to be overlapping they are Minor. The Marina bottom trunnion pin is located further away from the swivel pin with a distinct section of metal between the two.
The two main advantages of using the NOS UNIPART Minor trunnions are:-
1. very good quality & 2. considerably cheaper than commercially offered at the moment.
Good hunting.

[Flywheel]

Hi Phil, thanks for your tip, and also I'm grateful to you for your past comments, which have been very helpful.

All the best for the new year.
Regards Jonnie.

[philthehill]

The same to you.
Keep well and stay safe.
Phil

[philthehill]

Just taken delivery of another Minor bottom trunnion masquerading as a Marina trunnion.

[Nourish]

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early marina trunnion.jpg (147.88 KiB) Viewed 1231 times

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This is being advertised a an'Early Marina Trunnion' - is it the same as the Minor?

[Nourish]

Ah - Just found this on the FMM forum :-

'And before anybody asks the Minor ones aren't the same as early Marina ones, Marinas had a beefier bore and thread.'

So - when looking at Fleabay how do you recognise a Minor one wrongly labeled?

[philthehill]

The clue is in my post above! The distance between the swivel hole and the trunnion hole. There is no overlap of holes with the Marina/Ital trunnion.
Nourish
The trunnion in your picture above is a Minor item - not Marina or Ital
The early Marina trunnion (which is no longer available) has even more metal between the trunnion and swivel hole.
Also watch out for Morris Minor bottom trunnions which are in fact Marina/Ital items.

[philthehill]

Make your mind up time!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255266162865 ... SweYNhdvKo

[stuffedpike20]

Are those ones Minor bottom trunnions Phil?

[philthehill]

What I will say is that there is overlap of the swivel and trunnion pin holes which the Marina/Ital bottom trunnion does not have.
The plastic bag contains the large lock stop nut which the Minor does not have.
I would suggest that the trunnions as advertised are not Marina/Ital but Minor.
The Unipart Marina/Ital fitting instructions (U6101 May 1983 Issue 1 and AMK5115 Issue 2 May 1982) that came with the Marina/Ital trunnions I purchased for the trunnion pins give the part numbers as GSJ 213, 214 or 18G8998/9.
GSJ 217 is not listed.

[ManyMinors]

The Morris Minor bottom swivels were indeed GSJ 213 and 214. I don't recognise the GSJ 217 part number but it isn't unknown for parts to be wrongly labelled of course(!) which COULD be why these parts were never sold/used originally

[philthehill]

ManyMinors
The part numbers you quote are those for the Marina/Ital not Minor and are specified on the Unipart instruction sheets for the fitment of Marina/Ital bottom trunnions.
I have just referred back and the trunnions I previously purchased were marked GSJ217 and were Minor - though advertised as Marina top trunnions which is wrong as the Marina/Ital does not have a top trunnion - it has a ball joint similar to the classic Mini.

[stuffedpike20]

And these three are presumably all the same, so three left hand side ones, or three right hand side ones? Not a useable pair.

[philthehill]

The point of the post was not to get a pair of trunnions but to point out that things are not always what they seem and a good quality trunnion could be had into the bargain.

[ManyMinors]

And these three are presumably all the same, so three left hand side ones, or three right hand side ones? Not a useable pair.

They are LH ones. Original castings were marked L or R. You can just make out the L on these

[philthehill]

Left hand bottom trunnions seem to be in short supply at the moment.

[ManyMinors]

ManyMinors
The part numbers you quote are those for the Marina/Ital not Minor and are specified on the Unipart instruction sheets for the fitment of Marina/Ital bottom trunnions.
I have just referred back and the trunnions I previously purchased were marked GSJ217 and were Minor - though advertised as Marina top trunnions which is wrong as the Marina/Ital does not have a top trunnion - it has a ball joint similar to the classic Mini.

Sorry Phil but that is not correct.
There were many packaging errors on parts supplied by Unipart. I spent enough years dealing with them in my day job at a dealership As I said earlier, That is probably why the parts you've linked on ebay have remained unused for so many years. GSJ 217 is not a Minor part number.
The correct original Unipart numbers for the Minor swivels are:
GSJ 211 RH Upper
GSJ 212 LH Upper
GSJ 213 RH Lower
GSJ 214 LH Lower

[philthehill]

Whilst you may be right I can only quote the instructions and part number as specified on the the UNIPART documents of which I have four different issues. The illustrations on the documents clearly show Marina/Ital trunnions and the steering lock nuts.
The most important thing is that the trunnions can be correctly and visually identified.

[ManyMinors]

Yes, the Minor and Marina ones are quite different looking. It would seem logical to me that the Marina parts were given the next consecutive part numbers and so I would guess that the GSJ 217 is a Marina part number but the parts within the box were actually Minor? I too have a lot of documentation to show the correct numbers but I cannot seem to attach anything today
Mistakes within Unipart were commonplace unfortunately.

[philthehill]

For completeness - the factory part numbers for Marina/Ital bottom trunnion kits & taken from a genuine BL parts list No: AKM0034 are:-

R/H.............18G 9017

L/H.............18G 9018