Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi

I'm new to the forum.
I own a 1962 Riley 1.5 which I have recently bought. I hope I'm right in thinking the Riley is very similar in many respects to the Minor. Apart from wishing I'd never clapped eyes on the "piece of junk" as its affectionately known in our household, I'm now stuck with it and need to rectify a number of issues before I'll be happy driving it.

Anyway, can anyone here offer any advice for replacement of a chassis leg. The drivers side leg is made up of patches and corrosion especially bad around where the torsion bar/suspension bolts through. I want to cut it out and weld in a new box section.

Anyone done this job themselves and can help me avoid any pitfalls? Obviously its an engine out job....

Cheers

The underside is indeed the same - so yes - you will need the engine out, drain all fluids and then tip the car on it's side. Be sure to unload the torsion bar before you tip! Then strip off the suspension - take some pictures and some critical measurements before you start - and then cut off the old and fit in the new. You have slight advantage because there is no brake master cylinder inside the R chassis leg - as there is on the Minor! If you search the forum you will find many posts relating to this - but basically - they all boil down to what's written above. Good luck with it! Nice car - and you can always drop in an MGB 1800 engine for a bit more speed............

Thanks for the advice. I wasn't planning to tip the car over and am assuming I can do the work from underneath.
I am thinking that I can raise the car on axle stands under the rear axle, the front of the sills and the front cross member. Does this sound feasible?

How do you "unload" the torsion bar?


Many thanks

I dare say it can be done from below - just make sure it's very secure, and you have enough room to work comfortably. . You need to take the load on the rear lower arm with a jack - then disconnect/remove the king pin - and then lower the jack. Just a bit awkward/dangerous if you do it with the car on it's side - where you obviously can't use a jack to take the load. Easy enough on the ground though.

Really appreciate the advice.
I was thinking of perhaps welding a temporary cross brace onto the upper surfaces of the existing chassis legs before I start to keep everything aligned. I was then planning to remove the bolt eye from the leg, (haven't quite figured this bit out yet), cut away the old leg, (but only the bottom and sides of the box leaving the upper face in place - this appears to be solid and I'm told they rarely rot...). then plug weld the new leg into place.

I imagine the critical part is to ensure that the centre line of where the bolt eye goes through the new leg is identical to the old. I'm thinking I can mark this on the upper face of the leg before I start.

Does that sound like a reasonable plan?

Sounds about right, tipping the car makes a horrible job into a much more civilised one.

If you visualise laying under the car trying to operate an angle grinder or welding kit in a restricted space where everything that falls off falls on you then you will get the picture.

Red hot blobs of steel dropping in your sleeves is quite exciting but gets old fast!

Hi Mark

I've been there with a Mini restoration and know exactly what you mean. The difference was that I'd stripped the Mini to a bare shell so there was no weight for rolling. I really dont want to get that far involved in this job.
When I did the Mini sills I drilled out every spot weld which took me ages then removed the flange of the outer sill so that I could clean up the rusty interface . I'm assuming that the original leg-box is spot welded together. Can I just grind it back and plug weld or would you recommend doing the same/

Any advice received with thanks...

A bare mini shell, my niece could roll that over!

The thing is, you don't have to lift the whole car to roll it, most of the weight rests on the wheels that stay on the ground.

The secret to moving anything heavy is not to lift it up, but to let wheels or something slippery take the main load.

You are well qualified to take this on, the basics should all be the same.