Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi,
I'm plannig on sorting out my suspension over the next few weeks, the bushes have deteriorated and the shocks are empty so I'll be replacing all of the bushes with polybushes and refilling shocks and derusting bits etc..
Before I do it though I better ask, as I have never done work on suspension before, is there anything important that I need to look out for or any special techniques for taking bits apart/putting them back together?

slightly vague question I know, but I'm sure you get the picture

Thanks

Best tip I can give you is, if you are jacking the whole front of the car up make sure it is really secure as you sometimes have to put a great deal of effort into getting the bits on and off.
Oh, and get the wheels off a day early, buy plenty of release oil (not WD40) and drench all the nuts and pivots.

Front or rear suspension?
For both you need the car very well supported.

The rear comes apart as it looks to - however removing the front pin from the leaf spring can be a pig. It's best to have a new pin and mounting plate + fasteners so you can butcher them out if needed. Also could be worth replacing the shackle pins at the rear too.

For the front there is a bit of a learning curve! The suspension is preloaded, so you need to support the rear (thick) lower suspension arm. Most folks will do this using a jack. Undo all the nuts (including top trunnion), remove the tie bar bolt and fork, then fit the jack and the front lower arm (the thin pressed one) can be removed. Following that, the bottom trunnion pin can be pushed out to release the lower trunnion (i.e. releasing the kingpin from the arm). Then you can undo the jack to unload the suspension arm.
After that is done there are a few ways to dissassemble.
I prefer to undo the rear arm and slide the torsion bar back and release it from the eyebolt. However it is not always easy to get the rear arm to slide on the splines to release it. When that is done you need to remove a C washer to allow the torsion bar to go through the crossmember.
Alternative methods include undoing the eyebolt and extracting it from the chassis leg. Sometimes they will not come out this way and very unlikely to reassemble this way with new poly bushes if the arms are stuck on the splines.
Other alternative is to knock the front arm back on the splines. This releases the eyebolt pivot pin as it sits in the arm centre with a cup washer. Again if the arm desn't slide on the splines or the cup washer doesn't want to release then it can be tricky.

With the torsion bar off, you may need more use of the big hammers and lots of penetrating oil and time to free up the arms on the splines. When removed clean and grease the splines. The arms need to slide on the splines to realign correctly when reassembling

If you use paint marks on the arms and torsion bars you should be able to get them installed in the same position as they came off. However with new bushes the suspension height will be altered. There is an adjuster plate at the rear (where the crossmember has a long slotted hole) that can make fine tuning but if you need to go more than an inch then you need to move by a spline.

When doing front suspension bushes, check the trunnions carefully for play as this is the best time to replace them. The lower one will only unscrew if the pivot pin is removed. If there is significant play then the kingpin may be overly worn.

hi, don't know if this a stupid question or not but does the leaf spring start to sag over the years?

yes too right, it can sag to the point where the rear shackle will hit the chassis rail and you get a clunk when you hit a pot hole.caused by the length of the spring increasing as it sags and straightens out.Relatively cheap and easy to change but don't be tempted to buy secondhand they could be as bad as the old ones. Changing them has been covered several times .

With regard to the rear springs, don't make the mistake I made. The car had been rebuilt and the original springs were found to be contacting the rear chassis rail. New springs were purchased and in comparison the old ones were clearly flatter. Within a couple of hundred miles the new ones were contacting the chassis rails too. They had settled to the 'right' shape which was the same as the ones I had removed!

sorry peetee I don't quite understand what mistake you made. If the new springs were indeed new(Fitted mine about 5 years ago still good)Can't see how they settled to the Right shape and hit the rail again clearly not the right set up since they didn't hit the rail when the car came off the line brand new. Must be missing something in your post

Very possibly the front mounting pads are slightly too far forward!
Only special tool required for front suspension - is a ball joint splitter for use on the track rod end. It can be done with two hammers - doesn't hurt if you keep your thumbs out of the way!

The problem on my car was that the flange on the rear rail was too deep and foulded the scroll on the rear of the spring. I have heard that this is not uncommon (and could well be the source of may a creaking back end on a Minor) and that some restorers are known to cut out the offending new area when rebuilding vehicles.
Suffice to say the ride quality when it wasn't fouling was far better the when it was.

Peetee wrote:Oh, and get the wheels off a day early, buy plenty of release oil (not WD40) and drench all the nuts and pivots.

Hi, whats the problem with WD40 when it comes to this sort of thing?

WD40 is

water dispersent and lasts 40 days

thats why its called WD40

I thought it was
War Department specification#40

WD-40 literally stands for Water Displacement, 40th attempt. That's the name straight out of the lab book used by the chemist who developed WD-40 back in 1953. The chemist, Norm Larsen, was attempting to concoct a formula to prevent corrosion-a task which is done by displacing water. Norm's persistence paid off when he perfected the formula on his 40th try. Please see Our History for more information.

So - it doesn't last 40 days !! And it's not nearly as good at releasing rusted up bolts as Plus gas or similar products.

Right... I've got most of the stuff sorted now, I'm just not quite sure now how to push the torsion bar back. How do I get the the C clip to remove it?

C clip ???????

There is a C washer down that end somewhere...

C clip ??????? Not aware of a clip anywhere near the T bar!

C washer, sorry, or that thing at the end of the torsion bar that's shaped like a 'C'!