Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi All, I have recently bought a 1970 1,000 van with an inline Lockheed remote servo that doesn't seem to work very well. I have changed all shoes and wheel cylinders, but I am not sure if there is a special way to bleed the servo cylinder, or if it has been fitted properly.
Does anyone have a copy of the fitting/bleeding instructions for such a thing? or can anyone tell me what the problem may be. Cheers Simon

With drum brakes - you don't need a servo - more trouble than it is worth, as you are finding out! I would just take it out of the circuit - the drum brakes (in good working order) will be fine.
If you must continue with servo - it should be installed 'nose up' - otherwise it just bleeds through as normal.

Hi, I fitted a servo sometime ago whilst fitting a 1275 midget engine. However because of experiences of oil leaks due to crankcase pressure I only used the car a few times. Now having stopped the oil leaks I took the car out on the Merseyside Branch Easter run and was really having to put pressure on the pedal to make it stop. I found on google an explanation of how the servo works with full diagrams. Mine was fitted with a non return valve where the pipe from the manifold goes into the servo, according to the diagrams this valve is not shown and on removing it I now have good brakes. In fact just taking the valve out and sucking on it closed the valve. It would seem that it has never worked since I fitted it. Hope this helps, Alan.

The valve has been in wrong way round......try it the other way. It' s designed to hold a 'reservoir' of vacuum for you......

Hi, Sorry for the late reply as I have been away at a jazz festival in Keswick. The valve will will not turn round and according to the diagrams I obtained from google (6 pages) which explains how the system works, it shows that a non return valve is not fitted. I was out in the car yesterday and the brakes were excellent, so I am quite happy to leave things as they are. However many thanks for your interest. Alan.

It really should have a non-return valve fitted. Google isn't everything! You won't have any 'reservoir' of assisted braking if the engine cuts out for example. But as long as the engine is sucking air - it will of course work perfectly well.

Hi Simon,

The link below gives you the complete AP Lockheed (now Delphi) installation manual for their remote servos. Interestingly it says that the separate in-line non-return valve is only 'advisable' on high performance cars, because there is a in-built non-return valve in the plastic connector for the vacuum hose.

I did not know this when I fitted ours, so spent good money on the separate in-line valve - I know, should have read the manual first!

http://gentry.zxq.net/Remote_Servo_Installation.pdf

I'm assuming it was the non-return in the hose that was fitted wrong way round. Surely just a matter of turning the hose round ??