Morris Minor Owners Club

I'm trying to help my wife get her newly acquired '58 Minor ready for the last car show of the season and we realized the tires are shot. From what I've read, Minor rims require tubes, and I can't seem to find anyone capable of installing tubes plus they seem like a bit of a hassle. I was looking at other options, both 13" (4 on 4 14" rims seem pretty rare.
).

I like these unilug Cragars, but they were designed for larger studs (7/16 or 1/2") than the Morris has. Can I safely drill out the Morris hubs to use these?

The other option are these MG/Sprite rims that I THINK will fit, but I can't get a straight answer from the seller. Can anyone recognize these and confirm that they will fit a Minor and have the safety bead?

Of course, we could just use the stock rims, order tubes and tires and hope I can find a shop with an employee old enough to know how to properly install tubes. I know there are a few other British car rim options, but they're not exactly plentiful over here and we want something that fits the look of the car, not some modern rim.

If you can get tubeless tyres then you don't need tubes.

What I read was that, even with tubeless tyres, you must run tubes on Morris rims. If you don't, the tire could collapse in a hard corner. My wife won't drive the car gently, so I'm sure hard corners will happen.

Maybe what I've read is wrong. I've worked on 1940s-1960s American cars and haven't had to deal with tubes yet, so I'm new to this.

For example, this is what the Morris Mania site has to say on the subject (emphasis added):

Tyres
As described above, the standard Minor rims are not designed for modern tubeless tyres. You can fit tubeless tyres to Minor rims but you run the risk of the tyre peeling away from the rim under hard cornering, in which case if you have a tubeless tyre you'll have an instant flattie! This is not a Good Thing to have mid-corner!

The standard Minor rim usually takes a 5.20x14 inch cross ply tyre, but these are not only getting difficult and expensive to buy, but are not conducive to great handling! Swapping these for the equivalent-size radial tyre, a 155/70x14, will give your Minor a much better feel on the road; it will sit in corners much better (hiding the effect of worn shock absorbers!) and even provide a smoother ride. But a 155/70x14 tyre is pretty narrow for a Modified Minor!

Standard Minor rims can accept a maximum tyre size of 175x14, but this is an odd size in the non-metric world of tyres, so 165x14 is more common and keeps the rim within it's limits. Late model Van rims are slightly wider and can safely take a 185x14 tyre. Remember to always fit an inner tube to radial tyres - even to tubeless tyres.

By the same token a tube should NOT be fitted to a tyre that has been made as a tubeless type as the inner walls of the tyre will not be suitable for the tube to be rubbing against.
Bit of a catch 22 situation really, but in all my years of Minor ownership and running tubeless tyres on stock Minor rims i have never had a problem, even WITH plenty of hard cornering!

I love it when no one agrees on what to do!

Standard Minor wheels can only accept up to a 155x14 safely. If you put 165's on, for instance, you will see that the tyre looks odd. 175 is out of the question and I don't think 185's will go on van wheels. Tubeless should be fine

I've heard both sides of the argument and I don't know if there is a definitve right answer to this. All I can say is that in over 23 yrs of running tubeless radials (145's & 155's) on the original rims, I've never had a problem with a tyre deflating or blowing out.

And I don't give it any mercy on corners as anyone who's done Land's End-Orkney with me will know.

cheers,
Neil

The statements in the 'Minor Mania' clip are NOT correct - it's full of mistakes and un-truths. The nearest equivalent radial is 145 x 80 x 14 (strictly should be 135 - but v hard to find!) and these (and 155 x 80 x14) are used by many many Minor owners WITHOUT tubes and I bet we have gone round a few corners. Anything wider than 155 section on a standard Minor wheel is definitely asking for trouble. However the last-of-line van wheels were 4.5" J wide - and they will happily take 165 tyres, but 175 may be 'pushing it' just too far. The wider wheels are of course hard to find - and expensive!
Spridget wheels will fit - but of course are only 13" wheels and look a bit 'lost' in the Minor wheelarches. If you want tubes - i'm sure they are available - just fit them yourself - it's easy!

I think I'm now running with at most 1 tube, or most likely none? Had no problems with 155 radial tyres coming off rims in the last ten years.

getting back to hellfishes question as i can not add anything meaningful to the tube no tube debate..

Why do you want to drill out the hubs? why not use sleeve nuts? these are effectivly a nut with a tube bit and a nut bit.. sorry for the poor explanation.. the tube bit is also threaded but it effectivly increases the stud from the 1/2 unf out to the correct size for your wheel..

as a picture is worth a 1000 words and they seems to offer what you need..

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sleeve-wheel-Nuts ... 286.c0.m14

Those are required with the Cragars, even if 7/16-1/2 Chevy-Ford studs are used. so they'd have to be extra thick to make up the difference between the tiny Morris studs and the larger studs that the Cragars were meant to run on... and then I'm not sure they'd be safe. In retrospect, I also think the Cragar center hole may be bigger than the Morris hub. That combined with the unilug slots smells of disaster.

if the cragars are that "big" i would seriously doubt you will be able to fit that much larger a stud to the minor front hub.. back hubs i seem to recall have a lot more spare metal, but the fronts are seriously close to the edge already

Just getting my oar in over the tubes debate. I have run my Series MM for over 30 years with no tubes and have never lost a tyre or had any other problems. I corner on the principle that if you have no acceleration then you avoid slowing down for corners.
I also run my Traveller on tubeless but it doesn't corner as well as the MM.

Thanks for all your advice and opinions!

I took a closer look at my wife's '58 last night. The rear rims are stock Morris 14", but ther fronts are 13" rims from who knows what! I never even noticed, so they obviously look ok. So, she has 2 14" rims, 2 13" rims, and 2 13" aluminum slots. Given that 13" tires are half the price of the appropriate 14" tires, I think we're going with 13s!

Soooooo... what is the best size(s) for a Minor in a 13" tire?

for the look I would say stick with 14" rims .. 13" look too small in my opinion..

to answer your actual question this site might help you..

http://www.tyresave.co.uk/tyresize.html

if you do not want to have to change / recalibrate your speedo you need to keep the old and radius the same or as close as possible.

from the sounds of things the 13" rims and 14" look the same.. do they look like normal minor wheels if yes the 13" rims could well be spitfire wheels ( but obviously check on that by doing a google search on the code stamped into the rim)

I corner on the principle that if you have no acceleration then you avoid slowing down for corners.

I drive on the principle of maintaining momentum whenever possible - my minor has flown past many fast cars driven by people with no anticipation!

Hello Hellfish,

echoing what has already been said, but I would add that as the tyres are relatively narrow, they don't generate enough grip to unseat the bead and deflate the tyre.
Morris Mania is also confusing road holding with handling. The handling will be fine if you had crossplies but they have a lower grip level than radials. Cars that have very wide sticky tyres are great for roadholding but probably have terrible handling in as much as they cannot easily be slid and take some catching if they lose adhesion. (Unless your name is Franchiti)

Alec

and you should accelerate out of a corner

You can see in these pictures that there's not a big difference in looks. I want to say the fronts are 5.70-13 and the rears are 5.70-14... but don't quote me on that. It seems like my options may be limited to 155/80, 165/65, or 165/80 in 13s, but I still need to do some more searching

Hellfish wrote:It seems like my options may be limited to 155/80, 165/65, or 165/80 in 13s

WHich do you think would be best? I need to order these ASAP.