Morris Minor Owners Club

Looking at a Traveller a local garage has for sale (v. cheap 4 cond').

Started fine, put choke away a click after a few secs and it idled nicely, but pressing the accelerator - even gently - caused engine to falter.

Car wouldn't move without choke out at least 3 clicks and took several miles to warm up. It's a 1098, but felt very sluggish. Exhaust was a bit blowy, which might not help, otherwise mechanically all looked good, clean water oil etc.

Assumed running lean, but a breif check seemed to indicate it's alright. Engine is amazingly quiet (no tapping, rattling - unlike mine!), carb is early HS2 with saucepan filter and funny breather attachment on front (don't like).

Is this likely to just be the dashpot needing a top up and the carb wanting a bit of a tweak?

Can air filter be exchanged for newer type, do I need to change rocker cover too?

Also OS rear door is a bit wonky. Wood is definately sound, suspect rushed rebuild, can these be adjusted, or is it a case of removing door & redtilling hinge holes?

If I don't decide to take it, I'll post details here, someone is bound to be interested!

Not so quick after all, but hopefully easy enough to answer!

Thanks in advance

Ben

My 61 4 door that I picked up last week has identical engine symptoms, though it won't come off choke for at least a minute.
Parts are really easy to come by for these engines so I wouldn't worry much about a problem like that - it will be fixable.

On mine I will check timing and mixture (and maybe there is an air leak). After having done those settings, and if there is no air leak I doubt it will give any more problems.

The rear door can be adjusted, but only in a bodge way (as far as I know). This would need the hinges to be repositioned which isn't nice.
Are you sure it would be that simple? if you pull the mating edges of the doors straight, will the gap to the door post be wrong?
Otherwise, could it be a saggy door?

how much is 'v.cheap' ??
What does the undeneath look like? 'Rushed rebuilds' can be worse than 'in need of rebuild' as the bodges will cause more problems in the long run.

To check the carb use Willies easy method with the lifting pin, if it stalls its weak and undo the finger nut at the bottom 1 flat at a time, if its rich the tickover will increase and turn the nut the opposite way, its very quick and easy to do, and when correct the tickover will stay the same, and the dashpot can be checked by lifting the plunger and on replacing there should be some suction.
The rear door hinges are not really adjustable but have a spring & ball in them and if worn can cause problems, you should be able to feel it, on mine all the pins were badly worn and bent as well as the ball & spring parts.

Ray, I need to go back and look at the door properly to be sure, but it looked like it was just tilted, i.e. gap at top left (OS door), but rubbing on top of other door.

As for underside, the whole lot has been undercoated, so I'll need to go prodding before I know for sure, but it looked and felt sound. Certainly the woodwork was in excellent condition.

Asking price is 1500, no warranty. It's underwritten at 1200 so somebody obviously thinks they can shift it at that price quite easily. It was a friend who did the deal and he told the guy that he'd get nothing like the going rate for it, but he said he couldn't be bothered with the hassle of a private sale, so PX'd it on a new Ford (ugh). Actually he phoned me up when appraising the car to ask me how to start it and how much I thought it was worth!!! (500 quid mate, I'll be there in a minute ).

It does look very tidy, good paint (mostly) and interior and felt sturdy enough to drive. I think I need to go back and look it over again, the only reason I'm hanging back is that I've already offered to buy a car from someone else, once he's replaced a bottom door rail, which hasn't happened yet. But that car needs a respray, and I'm not entirely sure of condition of underside, though it was rebuilt from ground up 7 years ago (I saw it then, v. nice.

Ben

oil in carb only 3in 1 and new vacume advavce on distributer will help

ratling is caused by timming chain.

ratling is caused by timming chain.

Err what ratling.
You can also use 20/50 in the carb as well as the proper stuff from Burlen`s

20 50 thats engine oil isnt it to heavy, never seen berlens whats that?

I've always used 20/50 - the damper is intended to reduce the opening rate of the throttle slide, and therefore makes for a more pleasant drive in traffic by removing the kangaroo effect.
Even with 20/50 you can get a quick response to the thottle.

It just depends who you speak to as to what they suggest, in the original manuals it suggests the same oil as the engine, but they all seem to work, as for Burlens have a look
http://www.burlen.co.uk/index.htm

The 20W/50 is a bit thick really, for a standard car it's OK but you do loose a bit of throttle response. I have tried all sorts of oils over the years on loads of different carbs. The proper SU stuff from Burlen is the good stuff, but I ran out years ago. I bought some dashpot oil from Penrite and it's awful. worse than 20W/50! I tried the 3 in 1 as well and that was awful too. Can't exactly remember but I think it was way too thin.

Oh well, I've always just used 3 in 1 and it's worked for me.

Kevin: I did the lifting pin trick (as per manual), but with that contraption on the front of the carb, it was quite difficult to see how far the piston was actually lifting. The revs seemed to rise just slightly when pressure was applied to the pin and I took this as a reasonable measure.

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll go have another look at that car.

Ben

Just meandering through the engine spec of a 1275cc Ital and it recommends using engine oil either 10w/40 or 15w/40 and thats for the later carb HS6 or HIF44, so an oil of this type should be suitable for all and probably cheaper that the SU oil.

10w/40 or 15w/40

I may have to start using that, but still have some 20/50 left at the moment. There isn't a huge difference between 15/40 and 20/50 when used at the temperature of the dashpot.
If you drive in trafffic jams the advantage of not using a thin oil is that the car doesn't leap forward everytime you press the gas pedal, so you don't have to de-clutch all the time - It makes for a far more pleasant rush hour driving experience.
If you need to pull out in small gaps then it doesn't make a difference - I always build up some revs before pulling out in small gaps , by which time the throttle slide is open.
Though if you have a tuned up engine and are more interested in split second performance, a thin oil will give a faster throttle response.

Ray so it looks like that 10w/40 is a good alrounder then, I wonder what 3 in 1 is rated at, I used to use that at one time but found engine oil stayed in the dashpot longer.

Just to make myself feel better...

I bought the car, but took a pair of mole grips (v. tight dashpot) and a can of oil with me when picking it up.

On removal of the cover I discovered the reason the cover was so tight. The plunger was nowhere to be found and I don't think the owner wanted anyone to find out in a hurry!

Still, at least I now know I was looking in the right place!

Are the plungers the same on all the SU carbs? I have some larger ones off a Mini that I bought for £1 at a boot sale for spares (didn't realise they were larger), would one off them fit?

Ben

benji i have a box of about 50 morris carbs. u can have one if you like

Burlens still sell the correct SU dashpot oil
BDR1255 Oil - £3.88 plus post. Size (125ml)

i am going to try some.
good information kevin thanks.
i am going to try and find it

If its of use Halfrauds have Castrol GTX 10w40 on offer at £12.50 for 5litres that would last a while, they do a one litre size as well although I think that was a fiver.