Morris Minor Owners Club

i was so happy when i passed my driving test on tuesday i went for a drive by my self in my car and it was amazing.
on friday i went for a drive down the motorway for the first time to the lakes which was an 80 mile drive. about 50 miles my back tyre blew up and ended up with no tread so i pulled over and changed it and go back on the road. when i got to the lakes i went on a caravan field to look at other cars becuase it was a car show. while driving round my breaks decided to fail
i didnt know till last minuet and i crashed into a post at 15 mph. i bent my front bumper and broke some filler off my grille. i wasnt hurt.
i found out that the wheel cylinder seal had blown. i wasnt to happy and i was embarrased going home with my car on a flatbed truck.

Doh!!! At least you were in a field and not on the M6 !!!!

well as well it was either crash into the post or into a £25 000 pound car so i chose the post haha

Whoops, glad it wasn't worse!

Seems to be going round a bit at the moment.....

Well done for avoiding a much more serious accident!
If only all brake fail occurred on a field with a handy nearby post to stop against! I'd say the Minor really likes you.
If it was a mean Minor your brakes would have failed at 1am whilst going 60mph down a hill, heading into a corner... That particular Minor never managed to endear itself to me - as it tried to kill/seriously injure me a few times.

hotrodder .. I'm pretty sure I have a spare front bumper in my garage if you want it ... IIRC the chrome isnt brilliant, but it's a bumper

PM me with your number and we can hook up to exchange ... if you have half an hour free I could use a hand with bleeding my brakes too ;)

hotrodder13 wrote:i was so happy when i passed my driving test on tuesday i went for a drive by my self in my car and it was amazing.
on friday i went for a drive down the motorway for the first time to the lakes which was an 80 mile drive. about 50 miles my back tyre blew up and ended up with no tread so i pulled over and changed it and go back on the road. when i got to the lakes i went on a caravan field to look at other cars becuase it was a car show. while driving round my breaks decided to fail
i didnt know till last minuet and i crashed into a post at 15 mph. i bent my front bumper and broke some filler off my grille. i wasnt hurt.
i found out that the wheel cylinder seal had blown. i wasnt to happy and i was embarrased going home with my car on a flatbed truck.

Well done on passing your test - just remember not to listen to your instructor and USE those gears to help you slow down! It sounds like you were lucky with the amount of damage that was caused, I suppose it shows how strongly built Minors are built! Looking at your photo it looks really smart so hopefully you can sort it out.

How long have you owned the car? I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I suppose you are going to do so now, but make sure you are absolutely certain everything is ok before driving it again - never presume with such an old car! When I bought mine, the slave cylinders were all ceased and therefore the brakes were cr*p to say the least. Reading about you accident, it could have so easily been me when I drove it home for the first time!

As for your little prang, I've had a similar thing happen - only it's on the rear bumper (and it wasn't my fault)! I came out in the morning of the snow and someone had clipped it and knocked a bit of filler out the o/s rear wing . I'm trying to source a new rear bumper - anyone got any ideas where I can pick one of these up (almond green pref)?

There should be loads of rear valences at the Sat am autojumble at the National Rally if you can make it, otherwise they appear on ebay or post under our Wanted section. If it's not the right colour 1 can of spray paint in almond green should sort you out..

i drove mine into a sand bank at about 30mph, out of stupidness when i thought a morry could go around a gravel corner sideways lol. No real damage, didnt even break the headlight. just a scratch on the paint and thats it. tough old girl!

Lucky indeed it happened in a field at such low speed. I would ensure that all your wheel cylinders are replaced ASAP as they could have come from the same duff batch. Also check the brake pipe that comes out of the rear of the master cylinder heading towards the rear axle. Many of these are made of steel and can corrode. Have it replaced with a copper pipe if it looks old or rusty.

Handbrake?

Pete

I was going to say that, I had the main pipe burst ( it had been rubbing on the bulkhead due to poor clipping and got really thin) on a mini pickup years ago and drove it home 2 miles using just the handbrake, was a bit scarey but still quite controlable.

Wouldn't do it now of course, too old and sensible

well today in the post i got my new parts. got new front disk breaks and i am going to overhaul the suspension. got new springs and colourd polybushes and all new bolts. just got to find the time to fix it

New springs - for the rear I presume ? Hope they include all the necessary instructions and associated modifications to fit the disc brakes ! It's not just a bolt-on job.

ye new spring for the rear and poly bushes for everywere they did include some instructions but its only 2 pages long didnt seem like it would take that long when i skimmed throguh it.

new front disk breaks

I hope it doesn't!

oh my!

gona start repairing the car on wednesday i might post some before and after piks.

Disk brakes ... sigh, I'd love a set of disk brakes ... hey ho, maybe when I've made my first million!

If you are changing your rear springs, then its a great idea to change the pins at the same time, I have two spare rear pins (I somehow bought too many when I replaced mine - you will need 4 in total) and I have some slightly dodgy front-pins - badly manufactured in india which gave them the wrong sized threads for the standard nuts. The company I bought them from replaced them FOC but if you want the ones I have then you should be able to re-cut the threads with the right tools and they will apparently work a treat. (they said that when they measured them the inner diameter is too large)

Hehe, I'm getting rid of loads of junk this week