Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi,
I am about to fit Ital front suspension arms (with disks) and I've noticed that the upper links and steering arms are different! My question is: can I just swap both the said components over or am i scuppered?
The Ital has a ball joint instead and I can only presume that this screws off (hopefully). Your help would be much appreciated.
Davey.

I think you can only use the discs and calipers and hubs and they have to be redrilled if you want to keep the original pcd unless you intend fitting the marina wheels and then that involves sorting out the rear axle as well.

You must use the Minor kingpins. You need to remove the Minor hub and backplate, then drill out the mounting holes to fit the Ital dust shield and caliper mounting bracket. You need to fabricate a bracket to mount the flexible hose to the king pin (fits under the nut retaining the steering arm). Now the decisions: (a) either remove the Minor stub axle and fit a n Ital stub to take the bearings, OR fit a bearing adapter (from most traders). (b) swap to Ital wheels (keep standard Ital Hub but need to match rear wheels as well) or modify Ital hubs to take Minor wheels (exchange units from many traders).

You will need to modify master cylinder and consider fitting a servo (personal choice). There are many posts on the merits of different conversions but brakes are not something with which you should experiment - rely on tried, tested, and trusted kits or instructions.

thanks simmitc, can i just confirm something. the stub axle, does it NEED to be changed? i am interested, at the moment, in just fitting the ital wheels, and later on, when i have some spare money, getting the pcd changed to take standard moggy wheels. in your part labelled "b" you mention nothing of changing the stub axle, is this true?
thanks for your help
davey

You would need to 'adapt' the Minor stub axles to take Marina hubs.
Changing stub-axles in the uprights is not for the faint-hearted!! You should think long and hard before starting this conversion - and if you do go ahead - perhaps best to use a spare pair of Minor uprights and get all the difficult stuff organised off the car.
There are many other (and easier) ways to improve the standard front brakes.

Don't be put off changing to ital discs, it's actually very easy (I did the van in half a day). You need to get the conversion bearing kit, as this has a sleeve that fits over the stub axle on the minor kingpin. Fitting this is actually the hardest part, as you will probably have to emery the stub axle so that the sleeve fits. You also have to open out the four back-plate holes in the leg to take the larger bolts that hold the caliper bracket. Don't worry about fitting the dust shields, I have a saloon with them on and the van hasn't, you don't really need them.
The brake line changes are easy. Get a pair of Van rear axle hoses, and screw one end into the caliper and the other end onto the standard brake line. It is the right length and I've been running the van round on them for about 7 years so it's well proven (and it doesn't catch).
For the master cylinder you just take the black rubber cup washer out (it fits in the cup and is a pain to remove!) and there you are disc brake job done. You'll find that the pedal is hard (but so is the pedal when you have well maintained drums).
Re converting the hubs to minor stud pattern. You can get exchange hubs which have been machined for 30 quid a pair, so it's not that expensive, but these come back without the bearings in, so you will probably have to find and engineering shop to press your new bearings in for you.

It makes the old moggy so much nicer to drive now there are so many more idiots out there!

Andy G
XYN the red van, the roughest minor at the national!

Thanks to you all. In messages there is mention of changes to the master cylinder having to be done. One of which is removing the rubber washer. Why is that?
Incidentally I have just fitted a reservoir kit and noticed that it comes with a couple of spare rubber washers but there is no mention in the instructions for their purpose. They do in fact look like the afore mentioned rubber washers to be removed. I am very confused!!!! The questions are to recap:
a)Why do I have to remove the rubber washer, for disk brake fitment?
b)What are the two spare rubber washers for? Are they the same as above?

The little rubber cup washer in the master cylinder is there to keep a small amount of hydraulic pressure when you take your foot off the brake - apparently drum brakes need this, discs certainly don't and will drag (wear and overheat) if you leave it in.
Dunno about remote filler kit's washers, sorry.

The cup seal is there on a drum based system to retain some hydraulic pressure after you release the pedal, holding the shoes next to the drums in opposition to the tension of the return springs. Without the valve you would have to press the pedal down quite a way every time you brake. Disc calipers don't have a return spring so they don't need any hydraulic pressure to hold the pads next to the discs; in fact if the system does have a significant amount of residual pressure it will cause the pads to drag and quickly wear out or fade.

Someone on another forum had fitted a servo and discs to a Minor and it kept staying on, binding the front wheels massively. They hadn't removed the cop un the master...

It's all part of the 'fun' of fitting disc brakes !!

Strewth, not again...

Folks get into it Andrew without realising all that's involved.

Aha
a

If people dont know what they are doing they should buy a complete kit with the instructions and do it properly as the brakes are fairly important.

This explains it all.
http://www.minormania.com/feature.php?i ... pg=1&ord=1

Paul Humphries

'Fairly important' !! Critically important I would say - all that fiddling about modifying the master cylinder - hmmmmmm.

Mate, it's on a par with fiddling about with the back plates on the drums, nothing more, and not the huge deal you seem to think it is

It can be a 'huge deal' just getting the master cylinder out from the chassis member! No need to fiddle with backplates if W cylinders are used - it's only because I have a stock of new Minor cylinders that I chose to use them rather than buy more!

Whatever. I'll disagree again and shut up