Morris Minor Owners Club

Hello you guys. can anyone advise ?

The clutch problem I had posted on the other week turned out to be a collapsed bush on the relay shaft. Common enough. But I found that the bush housing has been welded to the chassis leg by someone previous to me owning the car. I pressume that the bolts are sheared off in the captive nuts.

Well I propose to angle grind the old housing off the chassis leg, then drill holes in the captive nuts and bolt stumps and use some large self tapping screws with hex heads, which I have aquired. I need to remove the gearbox to access the chassis leg and I am struggling with the bolts on the cross member. I have a feeling that the original bolts are inserted from underneath into captive nuts in the chassis legs. Mine has bolts desending from inside the chassis and nuts on the bottom ends of them. The bolts heads are rotating inside the chassis making them awkward to unscrew, but I think that the main problem is going to be when I refit the box. There is nothing to prevent the bolts being pushed into the legs and being iretrievable. I wonder how I can prevent this ? I can't see any access into the legs, so I assume the "expert" who fit the new floor in the car inserted the bolts before he welded in the floor.

The other problem I have is removing the speedo cable. I cannot find any reference to this in the Leyland manual I have. I have unscrewed the knurled alloy collar and thought the cable whould just pull out, but it does not seem to want to . I don't want to use too much force and break something.

Would appreciate some help.

Regards, Clive

Yes, the gearbox cross member bolts insert from the bottom upwards.
It is common for corrosion inside the chassis legs to have rendered the captive nuts U/S. They can be accessed if the gearbox cover is removed when you can weld suitable nuts in position.

You could cut a slot in the end of the bolt with a dremel type tool or a hacksaw and stop it turning with a screwdriver
The speedo cable should come out easliy enough once the knurled nut has been removed.
I hope they haven't welded that on somehow

Willie wrote: It is common for corrosion inside the chassis legs to have rendered the captive nuts U/S.

It has just occurred to me that the captive nuts for the relay shaft bush housing inside the chassis leg may have broken away , rather than the bolts sheared in the nuts. If this turns out to be the case, my idea of drilling out the nuts and fitting self tapping screws won't work. I wonder what I could do then ? I wonder if I could drill the holes out and fit some kind of mushrooming insert, like they are fond of on modern cars ? Any ideas?

Clive.

The relay shaft housing is held on by 2 bolts that screw into a 5mm metal plate that is welded on the inside of the chassis, not captive nuts. So if the threads in the plate are no longer serviceable, maybe you could tap them out slightly larger. It is unlikely that this plate has fallen off!
Regarding the gearbox x-member, if you remove all traces of the captive nut cages from the bottom of the chassis legs, so that the area is flat, you could then drop a piece of 6mm steel down there (grease the bottom) with threaded holes in the appropriate position to line up with the gearbox x-member. If this steel is as wide as the chassis it should stay in position. Radius the edges because the chassis corners are rounded.

Just to clarify, the "gearbox cover" is a large bit of metal that is held to the floor of the car by numerous brass screws (cross-head if original) and not part of the gearbox!

To get to the bolts / nuts / plate (whichever your chosen solution) on the driver's side you will need to remove the master cylinder!

Nightmare job just for a relay shaft bush !! There must be an easier way.

[quote="les"]The relay shaft housing is held on by 2 bolts that screw into a 5mm metal plate that is welded on the inside of the chassis, not captive nuts. So if the threads in the plate are no longer serviceable, maybe you could tap them out slightly larger. It is unlikely that this plate has fallen off!

Well this is good news. Things are looking up. I would have no problem in drilling out the holes slightly larger and tapping them dare I say "metric". I know this would upset a lot of purists, but it makes life easier and the car is not very original anyway. Regarding the speedo cable, I could disconect it from the speedo and let it dangle as I don't have to work on the gearbox, it's just a matter of getting it out of the way, so I can get at the relay shaft housing.

Clive.

Hello again,

Well all is now revealed, when I removed the floor cover around the gearbox. At some point in time the chassis leg has been replaced and never drilled or tapped for the relay shaft bush housing. there was no steel plate inside the leg, the housing has been welded from the word go.

When I had cut off the old housing and cleaned off the welds, it was then difficult to be certain of the exact location of the old housing, if in fact it was located correctly in the first place. I found a piece of steel plate, 5/16th thick which was just the right size to go inside the leg. I have drilled and tapped it to suit the housing and holes which I have drilled in the chassis leg, using the new housing cover as a template. This should now work ok. the only downside is that I caught the copper brake pipe with the angle grinder, as the pipe ran directly under the relay shaft bush. Still this is easy to replace.

Thanks for all assistance.

Clive.