Morris Minor Owners Club

Ive just spent about 3 hours removing a stuck hub bearing from a kingpin because I stupidly wasnt thinking when I was doing up the hub nut a few weeks ago.... I did the nut up too tight didnt I!! So When I removed the hub today the bearing didnt come with it and was left properly stuck on the taper on the kingpin.....oh joy.

An angle grinder and cold chisel finally removed it....but I now have to buy a new bearing set and seals....

So, dont tighten your hubs too much!!!


YG

they should be done up to about 40lb torque i think

Aye -I doubt the super tightening had anything to do with it really - the bearings don't sit on 'taper' - they sit on parallel steel. Maybe just a rag or some swarf/dirt on the axle shaft. I've always found them just an easy slide fit !

Just my bloody luck!! Ah well all sorted now.

I had the same problem, the inner bearing welded itself onto the stub axle, because some moron had fitted a new bearing and lubricated it with white grease.

I've had problems with bearings lately being the wrong damn size. Maybe yours were too, I ended up cutting a bearing puller up and adapting it until it would, um, pull the bearing

Hmm - is someone supplying metric bearings that are just a tiny bit smaller perhaps ? Any hubs I have ever dealt with have just pulled off by hand (sharp tug certainly) after undoing the split pin and nut.

Just quality going out the window again. When you find out how little even SKF bearings are made for-less than they were 30 years ago it seems, then something is going awry. I use a lot of sintered bronze "oilite" bearings, and just recently been plagued with them being undersize- unheard of previously. Also remembering a post about the steel backed gearbox spigot bearing with hardly any surface metal on it...

Heh heh - used to make the sintered bronze bearings - at Glacier! I know they still make them - and I bet theirs are NOT undersize!
I see they are now 'GGB' bearings!
I was heavily involved in developing the sinter process from a slow speed gas heated furnace into a high speed line with induction heating.

Hi, new here. Just today I've been for a look and a test drive of a 1962 4 door Morris Minor II 948 here in New Zealand. I've always wanted a Moggie, and my 15 year old son has stated that he'd get his license if he could drive a car like this.

He was in the car when my wife was the victim of a nasty accident, she was rear ended at an intersection and pushed into the car in front, wrote off a 93 Holden Commodore, dismounted the engine and jammed all four doors, he's been shy of being in a car since and hasn't shown any enthusiasm for getting his license until today. The idea of getting a Moggie has been to try to give him some enthusiasm for getting his license, and I'd rather he was driving himself in a Morris Minor than being driven around by a friend with a Subaru WRX.

I am in the industrial transmission game, and the bearings for Morries are about $NZ100 (30 pounds) each here - so that'd be $NZ 400/120 pounds just for bearings to do both sides. I think they were an RHP special (or even Ransome and Marles), something like 3/MJT 1 3/8 aren't they?. So I was checking up on disc replacements, and at the same time changing to a more standard taper roller bearing setup. I presume that something like a Marina disc and hub conversion uses taper roller bearings.

It really shocked me when test driving the car today, just how non-existant the brakes were. I think I'd definitely do a disc conversion with a servo. The car had a sweet gearbox, no popping out of 2nd. And it's been rebuilt only 3 years ago, back to bare metal and cut and welded back up where needed, repainted complete with a thin red stripe down the body side crease. It'll probably cost $NZ4500 (1500 pounds), but that seems to be the market price for a good condition one.

The front hub bearings are not 'special' as such, but are angular contact bearings, not regular ball bearings, which are completely unsuitable. The original bearings are both 'metric' series and are:

Inner 7205B 25mm ID 52mm OD 15mm Wide

Outer 7303B 17mm ID 47mm OD 14mm Wide

The 'B' at the end means they are 40° angular contact, whereas the originals had a 'W' which meant 20°, and they had slightly less axial load capability. Ideally they should be 'face adjusted', which means that they are designed to fit in the Minor hub application, where the shoulder width in the hub and the spacer length are exactly the same dimension. This allows the bearings to be fitted and tightened without the need for any adjustment.

The normally supplied bearings are unlikely to be face adjusted as standard, which could be why there seems to be a 'quality' issue maybe? Next time I have to change the bearings I am going to ask for the original BMC specified 'face adjusted' ones and see how they fit.

Anyone ever seen this website? Choose your type and make of bearing rather than rely on the suppliers if you feel quality may be an issue?

http://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/bearin ... _page1.php

Welcome to the forum my1962!! The prices you quote for bearings are very high indeed - i'm sure you can get a much much better deal than that! As for the brakes - there must be something wrong with them - because even the early 948 engine cars could lock all 4 wheels with a hard push on the pedal - I nearly put my driving test examiner through the screen with my 'emergency stop' ! Disc front brakes are really not necessary for a standard car - just give them a thorouigh overhaul - even with all new parts here in the UK that's not at all expensive. Not sure about shipment to NZ, but there are others from NZ on the forum, so I expect they will chip in soon!

A message from NZ. Brake parts sourced from the UK, drums + shoes, worked out cheaper (even air freighted) than buying here (if I could) and arrived quicker. Check the prices out at the uk online parts suppliers. Also, you dont pay the VAT being an out of the UK order.
The answers I was getting here, from an un-named retail parts chain, were like this ; "No, you can't get those bits any more" and the confidence inspiring opening to the conversation "What's a Morris?"

the typical "computer says no" approach then

Thanks for the info on the brakes. The Morrie I took for a test drive definitely was lacking on the brake front. It had just recently passed it's WOF (warrant of fitness, the equivalent of the UK MOT), but probably the examiner thought that a 1962 vehicle wouldn't have had great brakes anyway. Brakes are easy to adjust, and it's nice to know that parts can be sourced cheaply ex the UK.

I'm putting an offer on it if it passes an independant inspection for the condition of it's body, watch this space.

Now I was sure that the 3/MJT 1 3/8 bearings were the ones for the Morris Minor. They are a special face adjusted angular contact bearing, that's why they are so expensive as they're made in such small batches. They are 1 3/8 inch bore, that's approx 47 mm, and that does seem large for a small car like the Minor. But I wouldn't have thought they'd be using metric bearings (7205B and 7203B) in the 1940s when the Minor was designed. Or did the axle and hub design change later?

Are you aware that the metric taper roller bearings 30205 and 30203 have an identical ID and OD as these angular contact bearings. If there is space for greater width bearings, then could these be used as replacements?

Update on the front wheel bearings. they are definitely the metric series - don't know about the MM, but from the Series II onwards they are.

From an MG BBS the part numbers for the 'correct' face adjusted front wheel bearings are:

NSK face adjusted bearings

7303BEAT85SUN
7205BEAT85SUN

SKF numbers for the same bearings

7303BECBP
7205BECBP

They seem to be twice the price of the standard bearing, but if they fit without any problem, maybe worth it?

What does "face adjusted" mean? How would these bearings be an improvement over the standard ones?

And I have not had any bearing failures - not even on the Rally Minor which had wheel spacers(all the rage in those days) and was given some very rough treatment!