Morris Minor Owners Club

I'm sure you all know far better than the designers.
a

The movement involved in the vertical plane is tiny

I don't think there is any movement in the vertical plane, surely the turning of the bottom and top trunnions cancels out .

No - they are same thread -so the pin will rise or fall very slightly as the king pin is turned.

If so there must be a reason, it would be good to know, you can be sure a company would not go to additional expense without reason, dispite our 'expert' ramblings!

My feeling rather precisely. It may not be a good reason, but a bit daft to rule it out without knowing, IMO

My guess would be, if it's on the left make it a left handed thread to distinguish it from a right handed kingpin. Lets class it as an early British engineering fool-proofing method. A visible difference from a track worker (assembler) perspective maybe and only LH trunnions fit on a LH swivel pin etc? Toyota are king at this kind of thinking.

minor_hickup wrote:This is how the king pins are reconditioned!

Brilliant, if I go to a moggy shop then will they do mine? Maybe quicker than waiting I guess.

Oh Morris did many 'daft' things in the design of their cars. Since they would be making thousands (millions !) of the things - there would be no cost dis-advantage to them to have left and right versions. The stub axles HAVE to be different anyway. But for small scale manufacture now - there would be a possible slight saving, but i doubt anyone will follow that route.

Dean wrote:

minor_hickup wrote:This is how the king pins are reconditioned!

Brilliant, if I go to a moggy shop then will they do mine? Maybe quicker than waiting I guess.

well you can try this route, maybe a possibility

M Hickup, it will not be a tailered service but rather just a purchase and exchange item.
The problem we have experienced with these re sprayed king pins is that they wear at an alarming rate, around 3000 miles on a standard car and less on a modified one. Just hope this is not still the case on the ones mentioned by MT.
Good news that the legs are done and ready to be machined, wish the main suppliers would keep us in the 'loop' though! Gets very misleading when we are given conflicting information. Any mention of prive MT, as I'm sure that the manufacturers will be expecting us to pick up the tab for their mis judged attempts at saving a few quid, 'allegedly'

WRT price, backorders will be honored at price quoted (AFAIK) although I cannot state that as a categorical fact for all suppliers. Oh and the quantity estimate from my contact was 500 units per side have been cast.

I prefer new units than reworked ones, but will state this. Everyone, grease the trunnions EVERY 1000 miles, and replace any suspect bushes before slop in the suspension puts extra strain on the kingpin/trunnions. New units should be good for 60,000 miles if well looked after.

jonathon wrote:M Hickup, it will not be a tailered service but rather just a purchase and exchange item.
The problem we have experienced with these re sprayed king pins is that they wear at an alarming rate, around 3000 miles on a standard car and less on a modified one. Just hope this is not still the case on the ones mentioned by MT.
Good news that the legs are done and ready to be machined, wish the main suppliers would keep us in the 'loop' though! Gets very misleading when we are given conflicting information. Any mention of prive MT, as I'm sure that the manufacturers will be expecting us to pick up the tab for their mis judged attempts at saving a few quid, 'allegedly'

I realise this, was just pointing out that this is how the recon kingpins are done. You probably could ask to have your ones done specifically but it may take a while. I didn't realise the recon kingpins wore so fast!

Okay, sorry . The recon king pins we had may have been a bad batch or just what was available. Admitedley we stopped using them about 8 years ago, so as I say, hopefully they will be better produced now.

interesting debate but itsnot only where you are its the same here in .Australia.everything comes from China even bloody vegetables

Ahh - so.

'bloody vegetables' .....just what are they doing to them ????

jonathon wrote:'bloody vegetables' .....just what are they doing to them ????

Probably beetroot

China? Fancy some far off country having their own industrial revolution and thinking they should be allowed to supply goods to the rest of the world!

Engineering is far from dead in this country - but as with everything, it has changed (change is the only thing that's constant in this world). Often the clever engineering is done in the west and the production itself is done wherever they can get cheap labor - the west has nobody to blame but themselves (if any blame is needed) because most of the time they built the factories!
If we wanted to produce more goods in the UK we'd have to shoot all the no win no fee lawyers and repeal a lot of the health and safety nonsense. To get any basic practical work done at most engineering places in the west you spend more fighting through 'competent user lists' and risk assesment forms

Personally I made sure I had some spare kingpins, and at the national this year was happy to get more new trunnions for £5 each.

Very few parts on a Minor are that specialised, so as long as you're careful the days of cheap non-elitist motoring are still here to stay. It's certainly annoying that it's nearly impossible to find wings that fit right first time, but as far as I can see it's because they've been TOO CHEAP for quite a while. If good wings were available for the price they should be, more people would be inclined to repair their old ones, and kits to do that would become avaialble too... Then the DIY'ers and the cheque book restorers would both win (i.e. we wouldn't have the current £60-£120 rubbish front wings available - I've never seen the point of buying a 'new' poor quality wing!)
I don't believe that they can't be made right as plenty of people can afford to pay up to ~£300 extra per wing to have a new one made to fit properly.

I would have thought the left & right hand threads are to assist with self centering of the steering as they will be trying to unwind against each other. the forces may be small but if they were both a RH thread may bias a pull to the left

I cannot really see that the good ol days of British engineering 60's and 70's could be held up as the model we should return too. Explioted workers and incompetant managers ,lack of proper investment, were the reasons for our industrial decline. Plus the lack of protectionism offered by the British government when all around were protecting their home markets.
Unfortunately Health and safety has evolved into a monster but does now safe guard worker, even despite its over eagerness, however this is largely promoted by lawyers rather than industrial practice.

I agree Ray , parts for the Minor have been too cheap, this alone has allowed the Minor to be 'non elitist', as you say.
I disagree that few parts are specialised, and its the very fact that they are ,that makes investment by the Minor traders to fund new tooling for even the simplest item a real problem.
I'm sure you are aware of the costs of tooling nowadays, just looking at the wings supplied today shows that the tooling is well past its best, definition is poor to say the least and assembly detail on the wings is laughable, but then we are only paying £120 per unit.
A £300 wing if as good as the original would be a godsend but if this quality for a price were projected across the full range of 'poor' parts we currently tollerate then this surely would push the Minor into the 'elitist' sector that you seem to decry.
I know that its, just a 'terminology' but 'cheque book restoration' is not a dirty word, and it has conotations of elitism that could not be further from the truth.
We are fortunate to be able to build some very 'special' Minors, in terms of them being the customers, dream version of the 'marque'. They sometimes do not wish to build their own cars, do not have the skills or just want their dream car built to the standard that they might not be able to achieve. So where is the issue of elitism in someone paying for a service and a dream.