Morris Minor Owners Club

The core plug on the rear of the block - i.e. a few inches from the bulkhead/crossmember - is leaking. Initial thought are that it's an engine out job to fix it properly, but does anyone have any advice or guidance on this? The engine is a year or two older than the car, incidentally, and does not have a water pump.

Mike

Yes you are probably right though you could clean it up really well, smear it with araldite and use heat from a heat gun to get it to set. Might keep you going for quite a while

You have an early USHM2 engine without the themostat or water jacket as the later USHM3 engine did not have core plugs.
A friend had your problem on the way to the national rally at Lichfield, only his blew out completely. Fortunately we were near the village garage of another Series MM owner. The proprietor disappeared into his workshop and re appeared a few minutes later with a new core plug and a large crowbar. He placed the core plug in position and levered against the bulkhead cross member to seal it in. This was on a lowlight with the straight cross member. With your '52 with curved crossmember there should be more room.
The plug still dribbled a bit and eventually it was refitted when the engine was taken out.
In your case there may be room to remove the core plug, clean up the hole and fit a new plug with the engine in situ. Otherwise it is an engine out job. You could try Bars Leaks or another radiator seal.
From the way the garage owner just came out of his workshop with the correct size plug I would imagine that they are a standard size

Mine also has a very slight weep and I really regret not changing it when the engine was out. I dont think its the same as an A series core plug, if you find a source for them please let me know.

When I bought my lowlight I wondered why there was a hole cut in the bulkhead crossmember through from the inside of the car, it turned out that this was the way somone had changed the core plug. I have welded this back together, maybe a mistake........

I'd go with the araldite option, bolstered by a "dog turd" in the radiator, unless you are keen or have another reason to take the engine out, eg clutch replacement. "Proper" araldite, the slow set one, is a well proven engineering product, I have used it successfully to re-shape the transfer ports in a 2 stroke cylinder barrel, so it is well able to resist the temperatures involved. Just get it as grease free as possible, and drain the water first.

Araldite is good stuff, I had a corroded water manifold in the Morris, I ground out the corrosion and 'potted' the damaged areas with the normal slow cure stuff - probably 30 years ago, and it's still fine! Not a dribble!

Thanks for this. So far I've put some Barrs in which seems to have sealed it up to some degree. I put this in yesterday followed up by a half hour drive. When I checked tonight it looked pretty good, though the aralditing sounds like a possibility. What I'm looking to do in the longer term is find a correct later sidevalve which I can fit, so I really don't want to take the current engine out until such time I've got the replacement ready to fit and go.

Years ago when driving elderly narrow gauge diesel locomotives on a line in Lincolnshire we had a bad radiator leak on a loco - which one of the older staff "repaired" by putting some donkey muck in the tank. Needless to say, I won't be doing that on the Morris.

Thanks again,

Mike

donkey muck!

He must have been an early model eco warrior.

donkey muck!

I've seen it done (and it worked) on a battered Mondeo... we were in Mali en route to Timbuktu at the time, and their radiator took a few too many bashes as we were using the 4x4 / Truck route.