Morris Minor Owners Club

This is an annoying one, I have an A+ 1275 fitted with a tall type rad. Just put a new rad in. The outlet for the top hose from the rad doesnt line up with the thermostat housing outlet (they are point in slightly different ways. The old radiator had the top hose outlet bent to compensate, but this is a bit of hack that I dont want to repeat. The standard top hoses can be made to fit, but the wear more quickly and it becomes a weak point. I can get some modern hosing to replace that will cope with more bends, but would rather get a thermostat housing that points in a different direction, I.e to the radiator!, anyone know if you can get different housings for the A-series, and who might sell these?

Much appreiciated.

H

hi H if you can find one. i can machine one out of a block of ali or brass, with outlet pipe facing the correct way.

Hi BrixtonMorris,
How much?

_h_____,
I've used 12G940 (1275) heads for many years and always put up with the wonky top hose. Until last year I never realised that all 1275 heads have a different orientation of the 3 studs for the thermostat housing.
The wonky top hose lasts pretty well as I've never had one fail but I replace them if they start to look perished.

The alternative is to cut off the bend in the rad pipe and use a 90° rubber hose. I've seen this done on a handfull of 1275 Minors.
I'm not sure which hose is used but the first one I'd look at is a standard bottom hose to see if it would be suitable to cut down.

BrixtonMorris - same question really - how much, maybe there are few of us who could use one of these?

Ray, I have had trouble on one occasion a slight leak was causing slow loss of fluid, and I replace the hose about every 9-12months (I guess) as they start to look worn. It seems that they wear more quickly (but I could be wrong). As it is the wife that drives the car the most, I need the reliability, she is not going to change one on the roadside.

I was looking at Autosport international at all the hose manufactures and it seemed that modern hoses are more bendy and of better quality material (although they tend to bright blue or red in colour) so I was thinking of going this route, but thought that a "correct" thermostat housing might be better. The idea of cutting the rad pipe back isnt bad either.

Are all the thermostat housings the same then? Nobody come across a tuner who has done something different? Otherwise BrixtonMinor we may want to consider your offer.

H

I will look into getting rapid prototype Aluminium ones - if I can get a
batch of 10 or 20 for around £30 each then I'll see if there are enough
people interested. I guess a lot of people now run 1275 engines so they all have the wonky top hose. I need to get a 3D CAD model done first but i'll try and get one of the engineers at work to do it on Pro-E.
On top of that I also need to get the design altered so that it comes out at the correct angle - doing it in 3D should sort out if that is possible without one of the studs getting in the way of the exit pipe.

But just to give you a hint - if this goes as fast as everything else I plan to do, you may need another 1 or 2 top hoses in the mean time ;-)

There is a Housing that is much better it comes from the 1800cc `B` series marina engine, and all that has to be done to make it fit is to open up the mounting holes very slightly so that its not rock solid against the studs, but the problem is they are very thin on the ground and quite hard to get hold of, it has taken some time for me to track one down, and apparently the 1800cc Landcrab also has a similar housing but I have not seen one to do a comparison with.

Hi Kevin
If you have one, any chance of a picture?

If you get an old minor bottom hose and cut out the bent section you can use this. This works well because they normally die right at the bottom and also where the small tube comes in and you cut these bits out!
very cheap, most of us have an old one knocking about and you dont need to machine anything.

Olly,

you may be right, I just like the idea of fixing the problem permantly. I for one would pay £30 for the correct part. In the meantime a couple of spare hoses and a search of the parts catalogues for more modern hose might have to suffice.

H

the fix does look quite good and has not ever leaked for me, the only drawback is you have to trim or bend the radiator top connector back a bit to get it to fit well, but as i said it doesn't leak. Unfortunately I dont have a digi camera or i'd take a photo for you.

well it seems the required part does exist - just neto track down a source for the B-series (bigger marina) thermostat housing.
Thanks to Kevin for the pic.

I am impressed, now to start tracking one done........

a silly question maybe, but do Rover dealers stock them??

When you say its of a B-series marina would that be the same engine as in an MGB? and what are the thermostat covers on metros like?

It's the same engine as the MGB but the thermostat housing is a lot different (I thought of that - having an MGB!!)

Metro ones are too tall and suffer the same problems.

Ray I tried that with all my local ones and they said no but all of them have relocated in recent times but if you had an very old establised one they may have stock but even the Marina owners club spares people dont have any, aparently there is a source having some remade and they are going to be around £35:00 each Ouch

£35:00 each

well compared to about £10 for a standard one, plus £5 for an additional bottom hose - Then having to cut the radiator pipe off!:o!!
I'd rather pay the £20 extra.

First of course I will trawl the scrapyards in case there is a Marina still left.
(we have an overfull scrapyard where the stock at the back is very old as there's too many cars at the entrance so he can't clear anything out!)

I might be able to get some made up in China (either machined or cast) as a "group buy" if there are enough people interested. I'll need to get hold of one as a sample for them to copy though...
Alternatively we can use this to change the design to an improved version if anyone has any ideas.
Numbers would need to be reasonably substantial though so it would be worth contacting the marina lot too I guess...

I could get them made up in this country but I reckon that they'd be more than £35.....

I can normally get most things made up as long as there is enough commitment (financial)....