Morris Minor Owners Club

les wrote: ↑Thu Jun 18, 2020 3:45 pm [quote=

I do still like the cars but by God are they a right royal pain in the DONT SWEAR OR YOU WILL BE BANNED.

I don’t think I’d still like a car if I was that critical of it ?
[/quote]

My kids are not above criticism but I still love them

I read somewhere that it is a bad idea to put the bolts back in the 'wrong way', because the torsion bar bows a bit when it flexes, and could rub on the 'wrong' end of the bolt. The master cylinder bolts had thinner heads for a reason; so that the torsion bar could not rub on them , form a weak spot, and potentially break.

When you think that the Minor was introduced right back in 1948 and was a pretty inexpensive car, I think the design (and execution) was quite remarkable. My own Minor 1000 is a comparative youngster at a little over 60years old but is still perfectly capable of reliable daily use.
I really don't think replacing the master cylinder is THAT bad a job - and anyway, how often do you have to do it!
If you have ever driven any other car from the 1940s you'll soon realise how far ahead of any of the competition the Minor was

As Mr Pike says, it isn't always a good idea to fit the bolts the "wrong" way round. I've never heard of them wearing through the torsion bar but I know that they can create a rattle when they come into contact with it

I think Phil mentioned this, many moons ago. BMC wasn’t daft. We can all think of possible improvements as time passes but putting the M/C bolts in the other way round isn’t one of them!

Is the torsion bar highly tempered or case hardened? I was lead to believe that even a small amount of damage to one area of the surface of the torsion bar could lead to it breaking; and this is the reason that you do not put the master cylinder bolts in the wrong way round.

One day I was outside doing some work on the car when a neighbour came out and criticised the car on the basis that he once had to replace a master cylinder years ago and that it was a right (I WON'T SWEAR OR I'LL BE BANNED! ) to remove and replace.
Of course, the simple solution in design terms would have been to modify the cylinder and possibly the chassis leg so that the MC could be bolted in from underneath. Or to design the braking system so that the MC was in the engine bay.

Or fit a master cylinder like this:-

https://www.minormagic.com.au/collectio ... -instructi

The mounting in the chassis leg is interesting and could be used for an independent single line master cylinder fitment.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, as they say

I fitted a split system to a minor once, using a fiat 127 (? can't remember) master cylinder from the scrap yard. The brakes were split front and back. The MC fitted into the minor chassis rail perfectly, but had to have a remote fluid reservoir.
It worked for several years, then one day the brakes stuck on when I was driving. I took it out and put a 'proper' one in.