Morris Minor Owners Club

chrisryder wrote:marina and ford discs can both be fitted with standard rims. although can require a thin spacer with the ford setup until the pads wear down a bit!

I must re-look into this! After prolonged searching last summer (other than the Marina calipers which have frankly tiny pad area), I could not find anything except the early (flexible) VW Golf/Polo calipers that were chamfered sufficiently on the outer perimeter to avoid fouling the steep taper and rivet ends on my standard rims! Others have confirmed my findings, but please point me to the Ford calipers. If a disc with suitable depth exists to cater for the combination by drawing the caliper inboard enough to clear the rim, then please, someone, point me at it, as exhaustive checking through ATE dimensions failed to highlight anything when I was going through this! I think Clio ones would work by grinding a slight amount from the interference zone, but I was not entirely happy with this move!
For me, the attraction of discs is not the extra stopping power, as the 9" drums will happily lock up the 155 tyres; rather the unexpected but occasionally neccessary hard braking from 70+ when the fade starts, also the frequent need for adjustment and replacement of relatively expensive shoes, as the modern environmentally friendly lining material is akin to cardboard! (God knows how B*******e manages to make his shoes last infinitely, he must tackle downhills in first gear at 15mph and ignore the traffic queue behind him!

Traitor.. I have original long lasting/non fading shoes in my 9" drums.......

There are two ford based kits on the market. the one that all the usual supplier sell, and the one that jlh sells. both allow you to fit standard wheels, but do require a spacer to allow the wheel to clear the caliper when the pads are new!

we're going off topic slightly...

oh, i forgot to mention. the jlh kit seems best as it has steel hubs, not soft ally ones...

Any thoughts on the new 4 1/2 X 14 wheels from ESM?

Rasputin wrote:Any thoughts on the new 4 1/2 X 14 wheels from ESM?

Very nice!

http://morrisminorspares.co.uk/shop/pro ... 10b2a9b4e3

VERY nice, and that's PRECISELY what I want. Bit out of my price range right now...$350 for just the five wheels, not to mention shipping which would add at least $200...but that's exactly what I'll buy in the future. Wonder where they're getting them?

Fingolfin wrote: Wonder where they're getting them?

Scroll down the ESM news page - manufactured by MMC Bath: http://morrisminorspares.co.uk/news.php ... 10b2a9b4e3

Oh, Louise -- whatever would I do without you? I'm blind sometimes, I swear. Anyway, excellent wheels!

Ideal, and take the hub cap and don't protrude any. And far far nicer than Wellers with holes..... 4.5" with 165 tyres is absolutely fine for a reasonably standard Minor with some extra power, but I can see that 5.5" will have advantages for higher power cars which warrant more grip.

with esm getting those LP917's produced new, that sounds like the perfect solution. and around the same price as the wellers are supposed to be.

makes a lot more sense spending £50 a wheel for new ones from esm than ~£50 a wheel on ebay for potentially scrap rims.

dear santa....

chrisryder wrote:oh, i forgot to mention. the jlh kit seems best as it has steel hubs, not soft ally ones...

It's been brought to my attention that whilst it has been an issue in the past, the occasional problem with ally hubs has been rectified.

Big Brother is watching you...

do you think weller would weld in a set of minor hubs to their own rims as a one off?

i think it was mentioned earlier in this thread. it would require the minor wheel centre to be the exact same size as the weller rim, but also, if i recall, they wouldn't be too keen on an 'unknown' component. if it failed, who would be to blame?

If you want wide wheels that look like minor ones... go to esm!

what are the best 165 tyres to use? i know that on standard rims you use a profile of 80, but i can't find 165/80r14 tyres- i am considering getting a set of the esm wheels as a present to myself (and the car), but want to be sure of what tyres i can actually get.

They are around - it's just that tyre retailers' websites don't make it easy to find 80, or 82, or 83-profile tyres.

http://www.citytyre.co.uk/tyre-150-165R ... NIROYA.htm

for instance. I think that tread pattern and width would look horrible on a Minor, but if it floats your boat...

I've never had any problem with Uniroyals, but I've not used this variant, or dealt with this supplier.

beware of 165r14C tyres - the C means a commercial tyre, with higher load rating and usually stiffer sidewalls and more weight.

Kevin

I have this type on two of my cars

Here is my other car with this wheels

Van wheels painted white look good