Morris Minor Owners Club

Hello All

I am new to the newsgroup and indeed the MMOC I have however a query I hope that someone can advise me on for my Ex Army Traveller I have just aquired.

I am in the process of replacing the front cylinders as 8 years of storage have taken there toll and I have found at some parts suppliers both Lockheed and Pattern wheel cylinders are available. As the pattern parts are in some cases less than half the price of the Lockheed parts are they really half the quality?

The reason I ask is that I work in the automotive industry myself (in Quality) and there really is not a huge amount to a wheel cylinder and I was wondering if is some fundamantal difference between the two makes of parts that I am unaware of. Otherwise I am leaning towards the pattern parts.

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts and comments

Cheers Jon.

Hi Jon there has been a bit of debate over this before with owners on both sides of the fence although it appears that the original style rather then pattern seem to last a bit longer especially when it comes to the master cylinders for some direct comparisons both Bull Motif and ESM are good on prices, have a look at

http://www.morrisminorspares.net/

http://www.morrisminorspares.co.uk/

Also look at the remarks on Bull Motifs site about the master cylinder.

Pattern front wheel cylinders have a different seal arrangement - which looks much better to me ! But if you are in QC - you tell us !

Hmm the pattern front cylinders I got were a bit hit-and-miss. Some were fine, others the casting was truly garbage. I'd go for genuine next time.

I went for "genuine" - this is where Ray pops up & says "I work for them & there's no such thing" but he did have problems with his pattern parts whilst I had no problems with mine so who knows... The extra cost is not much more...

Dan

What Ray means I think is that the genuine parts are not made by the original company as they dont exist as such and the company name is owned by another corporation who produce the parts, but it would appear that they are made to a higher standard that the pattern parts that seem to vary quite a bit, and if Jon works in quality control he should be able to compare the difference quite easily.
But its interesting that Bull Motif who are one of the biggest supplies of parts for Moggies will now only sell original type master cylinders due to problems with the pattern ones.
Still at the end of the day you pays your money and takes your choice and I would prefer original over pattern any day.

certainly on brakes. Only one brake cylinder has to fail, and there would not be any pressure!

hiya mate ,ive just replaced mine, pattern ones u cant buy replacmaent seals i was told ,so i got genuine,steve

but he did have problems with his pattern parts

Ah yes - but after many months he eventually found out what the root cause was and it was only the brake adjusters (long story)!
Don't use 7" brake adjusters when using 8" drums, as they don't fit properly!#!!
You live and learn...

Thankyou All very much for your input.

Having compared the costs of Pattern vs Lockheed I have decided to splash out a bit extra for the "OE" style parts.

The coment made by Kevin is indeed an interesting one and based on personal experience of working with the new owner of Lockheed I would hazard a guess that the cylinders are now more than likely manufactured somewhere in Eastern Europe or South America.

Currently in the Automtive industry Tier 1 suppliers such as the one I am currently employed by is coming under massive pressure from OEM's to try to knock out as much cost as possible from our bought in parts and we are basiclly being instructed to purchase the cheapest materials possible from the cheapest countries. These purchasing policies from these huge automotive companies having no benefit to the end user, simply put it reduces the life span of new cars in an attempt to reduce the huge amount of losses that these companies ae incurring! Since October last year the raw material price of aluminium has increased by in excess of 50% however there has been no corresponding increase in the price of new cars. In my opinion cars designed and manufactured today are in no way as well built as cars designed and built 5 to 10 years ago.

In 2004 I completed the Plymouth Dakar challenge in a 1.6 Austin Montego a car with an appalling record for reliability and build quality - It never missed a beat. The following year I drove an 1988 Mercedes 260E through Algeria on the Hoggar Covoy and spent four days in the Sahara - I wouldn't dream of taking a new merc on similar trip there reputation for reliabilty is awfull - again due to cost saving.

Anyway thats me off my soapbox now.

Thanks again for the comments.

I will report back when I receive the parts.

Jon.