Morris Minor Owners Club

So long as it was lubricated with EP90 every few miles as the EP90 will drain out of the trunnion via the bottom trunnion pin as the Minor trunnion and trunnion pivot pin seals are not designed to retain oil but do keep some of the dirt out.
Alternating between EP90 & grease should keep the grease already in the trunnion soft.

Good job it happened then and not next weekend

The front trunnion arrangement is quite possibly the worst part of the entire car, and yet they carried it over to the Marina in the seventies. What were they thinking about?

Profit probably

Of all the occasions of collapsed suspension that I have heard about, I have never heard of it happening above walking pace

Happened to me some 50 years ago at about 40 mph on a sharp bend....

There is always the exception to the rule.
Does rally driving count?

There's nothing really to stop it happening at speed is there. If it has worked it's way down the kingpin all it needs is a bump to push the suspesion up at the right angle then the torsion bar will pull the trunnion off. Cornering will increase the pulling force from the torsion bar too. Worrying as I do have a clonk when going over bumps from the front suspension yet as far as I can tell the trunnions and kingpin are fine. On saying that mind you I can't find anything else that could be clonking.

Have you checked the eyebolt bush? It oftens causes a clonking noise when it worn.

DAVIDMCCULLOUGH wrote:Have you checked the eyebolt bush? It oftens causes a clonking noise when it worn.

It's on my to do list to polybush the front anyway so it'll go to the top of the list now.

I was once told by an old mechanic that trunnions tend to pop with less weight acting on them.
When turning a corner fast you load each trunnion, as in pulling the trunnion tighter to the swivel pin and any thread left in the swivel/trunnion itself.
When 'nursing' the wheel at low speed/stationary there is no 'load' on the trunnion itself so if it's gonna go that's how it'll do it.
That's how I understood it, and made sense of the low speed trunnion phenomenon.

[quoteWhat were they thinking about?[/quote]

You obviously have forgotten the history of British Leyland. The kingpin/trunnion arrangement was actually designed by the unions, as part of their plan to bring BL to its knees and then destabilise the entire country. Having succeeded with this they moved on to their master stroke, when Red Robbo and his left wing cronies emerged from their smoke filled room clutching the design for a complete car. And thus was born the Allegro....

Sorry, still feeling light headed after a 75 mile charity bike ride yesterday!

Ah yes of course, it all fits in to place now. There was me thinking they hadn't thought at all. Morris Motors infiltrated by a sleeper cell in 1948 just as the Minor was being designed and slipping in design glitches to anticipate the chaos of the 1970s.

They're a patient lot those anarchists!

I wouldn't be on this site if I wasn't fond of anachronisms! Still, there were people who blamed the 1970's mess on the erosion of true British values which started with that extreme left wing plot, the NHS, also born in 1948, so perhaps....?

Ah, the NHS, of course. A friend of mine has a complex theory around the fitting of softy plastic bits to Land Rovers which coincided with the loss of the British Empire. Or maybe not a coincidence?

As conspiracy theories go this is up there with the Roswell aliens...

Just because we're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get us...

I can confirm from my experience today ....oh yes they do fall off at 50mph (150yds of bottoming the front end).
At least no one was hurt

When that happened to me I jacked it up, pushed it back together, and then lashed my tow rope round top and bottom arms. It got me to Uni to sit an exam -and home again....

That reminds me, I must put my tow rope in the boot !!!