Racing with Morris Minor Suspension

[bmcecosse]

And indeed I too had hefty plates on both my Minors when the -ve camber was introduced.

[IslipMinor]

a hard plastic bush to size the bore of the eye bolt

No! The bore was sized by measuring a original eye bolt and rear spring, as the same bushes are used there as well, and a standard polyurethane bush was used just to check that it would go in nicely. The bushes are the standard Minor polyurethane eye bolt bushes.

the chassis leg of Richards Minor has been strengthened around the eye bolt

Yes, it was not done originally when the Minor was restored, which included replacing both chassis legs, but our local MOT garage changed to using a one-man MOT process that utilises a 'shaker' to test suspension, and he noticed a very small movement of the LH eyebolt, but could see no apparent reason (he checked that the nut was tight, and it was), so it failed.

Stripping the suspension down there were some small cracks propagating out from the eyebolt bush in the outside of the leg, which hadn't gone very far, so were not visible with the eyebolt in place - enough though to allow a small movement that would only have got worse. The solution was to weld up the cracks, dress the welds flat and then weld on a 'U' shaped reinforcing plate to the outside of the chassis leg on both sides of the car. Thanks goodness for modern technology MOT tests!

Whilst doing it I noticed that the bracket on the leg, where the front of the tie bar fits, had been pulled slightly out of shape under braking towards the rear of the car, so that was straightened and a reinforcing angle welded on to stiffen the mounting.

[philthehill]

Richard
Many thanks for the explanation above.

A photo of the additional reinforcing around the tie rod front mounting bracket would be appreciated.

Phil

[olderisbetter]

Amazing looking car and nice to know it has survived and is great condition, also nice to see pictures in this topic of cars painted with what looks like red oxide.

[philthehill]

olderisbetter
Yes it is red oxide over self etch primer.
The majority of the under side is finished with red oxide.
Easy to keep clean and patch paint if required.
Here is the back end under the boot lid.
Phil[frame][/frame]

[olderisbetter]

philthehill
Thats a tidy rear end set up,etch primer and red oxide sounds like a great combination, I use red oxside from screwfix for alot of my projects i even use it for painting wood outside.

[bmcecosse]

Ahh the good old days of 'red lead' (which was orange) - until it was banned for being 'unsafe'. I wonder if red oxide actually contains any 'oxide' - and if so - oxide of what...? Seemingly not - it just looks like iron oxide (ie rust) and is actually an alkyd.

[IslipMinor]

In response to a request for the negative eyebolt dimensions, here is a slightly better version of the sketch that I used to make them:
[frame][/frame]
The dimension with the ** is the one that determines the camber angle and was calculated to suit our car (the drawing adds the 1/8" back into the length for the reinforcing plate that we have now). You may want to make them about 1/8" shorter, i.e. 1 1/4" instead of 1 3/8", and use spacers to adjust the camber angle (NOT 'U' washers though!). There is plenty of thread length to space it out, but obviously if you need to space it out more than around 1/4", then make it longer in the first place.

The picture below shows it fitted and the free thread length:
[frame][/frame]
The material is a basic free-cutting steel, nothing fancy is required.

If you would like a copy, please let me know - the drawing is in a .jpg file, but I can convert it to .pdf if you prefer that format.

[racrdave52]

You guys are awesome thanks for all the great information! I will be tracking the car hopefully in April to get a better feel for what it needs. I also need to get a gauge on it to see what the camber is at. Looking over all the bushes it appears there is no poly which is something I will address as I go through things. I may just need a washer as I certainly don't plan on going wild with camber. My other race car (Porsche 944) has around -2.5 but of course it runs R-Compound radial slicks.

[IslipMinor]

A photo of the additional reinforcing around the tie rod front mounting bracket would be appreciated.

Phil,

Here are a couple taken today. First one taken from underneath on RH side of car looking towards the front:
[frame][/frame]
Second one taken from the RH side looking in towards the front tie bar mounting.
[frame][/frame]
Just refitted them as part of the reassembly following the respray. I used poly bushes at the front of the tie bar mount and standard rubber ones at the back. The poly bushes came at nearly 3/4" thick instead of the more normal ~9/16", and no register to locate in the mounting. Quick trip to the lathe and the additional thickness was machine down to 5/8" diameter giving a 3/16" register and 9/16" thick bush. All went together very nicely as you can see in the pictures.

[Declan_Burns]

Richard,
I could make them up in the exact size. The ones I originally made have stood up well over the years. I am just waiting on the polyurethane to arrive to do some more experimenting.
Regards
Declan[frame][/frame][frame][/frame]