Morris Minor Owners Club

I was thinking of changing my 803 differential with a modern 1098 type on Lucy. Is it possible to retain the same brake drum and wheel arrangement?

Without going into much engineering that is....

I think you will need to change the whole back axle - but i am not an expert on 803 cars.

It all depends which axle you have at the moment. The early S11 has the Nuffield- type axle, the alter ones had the A-series axle. They changed over around '53-54.

If your axle has a 2-piece casing, then that'll be the Nuffield one, if the diff looks like it'll come out in one piece through the front of the axle, then it's the A-series one.

Later diffs will bolt into the A-series axle, the earlier axle will need to be chancged for a later Minor on, it's a bolt-in swap.

from what I can deduce I have a Nuffield type axle




What I need is to fit an A-series type axle (Which I already have from another 1000) but retain the same 803 wheels and drum is this possible?

I'm pretty sure that the Nuffield axle had a 100mm PCD (wheel bolt pattern), whereas the later cars are 4" (yes I know it's close, but not close enough!).
You'll need the later front drums, hubs and wheels if you want to avoid carrying 2 spare wheels.

The early cars were 4.5" PCD - certainly NOT a metric size - it hadn't been invented then !

Actually, due to Morris assembling guns for a French manufacturer(!), there are metric threads on the MM series. The head bolts on the side-valve engine are Metric fine threads, and other metric threads can also be found on the sidevalve engine.

I read this in Minor Matters many years ago.

Its the same in Clem... 1926 morris uses metric fine threads with imperial heads :s