Suspension Height

[rh8369]

Afternoon all,
Having brought my 1969 convertible over to France I’ve had to pass the French MOT (CT) in order to complete one of the tasks for registration here. The car passed a UK MOT with no advisories on 3/6/26 and passed here too but the suspension height was noted as different for the front of the car plus they said the tracking was out. The car has 4 new tyres all equally inflated correctly and on a perfectly level surface the height unladen (tyre bottom to wheel arches) is as follows;

Drivers side
Front 66.5cm/26.18inch
Rear 63.5cm/25 inch
Off side
Front 64.5cm/25.38inch
Rear 62.5cm/24.50

So clearly there is a difference of 2cm on the front and 1 cm at the rear. I’m used to a 1969 Morris Mini suspension which I do have marginally set higher on the drivers side to allow for me getting in! Where would be the best place to start adjusting the gaps so that they’re closer front and back or do people think this is fine? The rise is good and seems balanced on a normal road. Once this is done I’ll get the tracking checked and adjusted. Cheers

[philthehill]

Just set the front suspension as per the BMC wksp manual diagram below.
The top of the wheel arches should not be taken as a definitive datum point as the wings are bolted on and adjusted for fit not accuracy.
There is not much you can do about the rear. You may find that getting the front right corrects the difference at the rear.
One of the advantages of fitting/having the Marina screw adjusters that it is very easy to set the suspension height without having to dismantle anything.

Ride height 3.jpg (194.86 KiB) Viewed 1189 times

[rh8369]

Cheers!
As soon as the Mini finishes its service and carb swap tomorrow I’ll get onto the Minor and adjust as you describe!

[les]

I’ve found a similar effect on the rear as Phil commented on, the front adjustment has a tendency to alter the diagonally opposite wheel. Hopefully you will find this too.

[philthehill]

This thread revive has reminded me of the time I had to adjust the wheel/axle loading on a Ransome's and Rapier 75 ton capacity, 4 (non radial) axle rail mounted crane. Way back then I was involved (for 30 years) in the mechanical engineering side of Military Railways.
It involved using a special jack fitted with a pressure/load gauge to lift each wheel individually. A shim was then passed between the wheel tread and the railhead to ensure that each wheel was lifted the same correct amount. The spring mount links were then adjusting so that the the leaf spring tension was proportionate to where the axle was located in the chassis. The loading on the two centre driving axles was about 15% more than the two outer axles to provide drive grip. Having done all eight wheels I had to go back again and and again carrying out the same process as adjusting one wheel altered the loading on the other wheels. The process had to be carried out several times to get the axle loading correct so setting the suspension on a Minor is a doddle.
Happy days
Phil