Morris Minor Owners Club

I wanted to replace the door stays on my traveller, one side works fine bu the other was useless and closes at the slightest excuse. Having taken a few measurements I went to the scrap yard.. I found that the boot hydraulic rams from a mk3 vw Polo ( 1994 - 1999 ) gave me a suitable length and equally importantly the ball mounts are easily removable and cost only 5 pound for the pair. One ball is screwed directly into the tailgate and requires a 10mm spanner to remove it. The other end is slightly different as the ball is mounted a u shaped braket but the bracket is held in place by 2 * 10mm bolts.. bring back both the bracket and ball.

To mount the new hydraulic ram on to the traveller firstly I removed the old door stay. To make life easy for myself i decided to reuse the bracket that mounts on the door panel, I simply ground off the top of the pin and drilled the hole out using a 8.5mm drill bit. The screw thread of the ball is M8 but you need to screw the bracket on to the door before passing the thread of the ball joint through the hole you drilled earlier.

The u shaped braket that was mounted to the body of the polo needs to modified slightly ( hit with a hammer ) to allow the two feet to sit flat against the side rail. I "reused" one of the side rail screw holes as the furthest forward mount for the u shaped braket and drilled one new hole. If i were to redo the job i would mount this braket an inch or two further back as i am not sure the doors open as far as they could. The doors now open on their own.. not enough to knock you over but when you close the rear doors they will not stay closed unless you move the handle to the locked position.

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Nice job

I like that idea, may try it out when Im putting my traveller back together.

I bought the telescopics advertised by Birmingham MMC. They certainly weren't the current price when I bought mine.

68.89! i certainly seems a lot..

I did it more for the fun of looking around a scrap yard and reusing parts than saving money.

No need to go to all that trouble, simple wedges do the trick

Doesn't it rattle against the body when not in use?

Charlie_morris_minor could set his door to open up remotely, that would turn heads where ever he went.

i could even use it as an anti theft device and knock the little toe rag off his feet if i used a stronger telescopic.

the only problem with the wedge is putting it in and out everytime i want to open \ close the door, i could .. if i wanted a really easy life i would have just found a replacement door stay.

The catch should be spring loaded, maybe replacing the spring would make it work as designed?

ok i admit it i am scrap yard junkie and just need a fix