Morris Minor Owners Club

Are there any appreciable advatages over the stadard rear setup?

I'm about to overhaul the rear suspension on my '56 split screen, replace the rear springs and dampers (as both leak quite badly) with the drop links.

Replacement for the dampers and drop links is about £60. Or for £85 I can buy a telescopic damper kit. So is there much benefit to be gained by spending an extra £25?

I presume if you do fit the tele dampers that you remove the old setup, i.e. they are a replacement as opposed to a supplement?

Cheers for the thoughts,
Adam.

The quality of available dampers varied greatly, due to the quality of them and the way in which they are mounted. Jlh minor (google them) specialise in minor mods and have a much more highly developed and better system for mounting them, however it requires more work. Just search around a bit and see what suits you best. I'm sure someone will be along soon telling you to just keep standard.. It may be helpful to say if your car is already modified at all and how often/ where it will be driven etc.

If you have the original seven leaf springs on your Series11 they are not the same as Traveller springs which have thicker leaves, will jack the back up too high and spoil the handling so it will be a waste of time fitting teles. The later five leaf springs are an acceptable alternative to the original sevens

The standard dampers are just 'folded up' tele dampers - so just fit the new/reconditioned ones and try it with your new 5 leaf springs - DO fit polyurethane bushes!! If still not happy - you can upgrade the dampers by simply filling with more viscous oil. As above - the tele kits vary in quality - the best ones involve cutting and welding your car - the kits that don't involve this generally have the dampers mounted at a silly angle - and the bracketry has been known to crack......... Don't do it!

There have been a number of failures of 'bolt-on' rear damper kits where the bracket and/or the boot floor develops cracks. As already mentioned there are also some well engineered kits on the market - the good stuff should not be confused with the other stuff!

pretty much anything and everything has been fitted to the rear of Minors - from the simple angled-tele damper kits right up to full IRS. How long is a piece of string? What you choose needs to match the time you have, money it costs and what end result you want.

One useful mod alongside tele dampers is anti-tramp bars. There are different ways to do this but if you want track day ability, then a kit that uses the stiffness of the rear axle into an anti-roll-bar is a useful way to go.

To be honest I was looking at the kit that ESM sell - Oil damper kit at £86:

http://morrisminorspares.co.uk/shop/pro ... 93bfb61088

However, that's a very different kettle of fish to the JLH kit, and sounds rather at the bottom end and so therefore should be discounted in favor of replacement shocks of standard spec, and saves me £25 odd quid.

Not too worried about maintaining purity, already has a 1098 and marina disks fitted.

Track day capability can wait till I win the premium bonds... Only just got it out of the garage after not using it for 2 yrs...

Passed MOT no problem though.

Cheers for the thoughts,
Adam

Well done with the MOT - wise to stick with the standard dampers....... The poly bushes will make a difference to the car anyway.

Adam,

First question is what is wrong with the existing springs? The original 7-leaf springs were a bit stiffer than the later 5-leaf, but usually controlled axle tramp a bit better as a result.

Lots and lots of debate/discussion/argument about lever arm versus telescopic. I replaced the original rear lever arms for a crude telescopic conversion almost 40 years ago and found little difference in ride quality, but I felt they helped to control the axle tramp a bit better. The tele dampers were angled in and the top mounts through the boot floor were not well engineered, so did cause a few problems over the next 25 years.

During the restoration in the mid/late 90's I had to decide which way to go with all the dampers. I came across a complete front/rear Koni adjustable kit (oil) at an autojumble and bought it. The rear fixing was not at all good, so I fabricated a cross-member, not unlike the one that ESM shows, and have used that for the last 13 years. If using that sort of mount, the boot floor needs to be very sound, and I would use a larger plate on the top of the floor than either a standard or penny washer - something about 50mm square or round.

No it is not ideal, but then it is a 60+ year old chassis design, and having perfection in one place does not compensate for limitations elsewhere. They are a definite improvement, and the combination of a full hard setting on the front (plus a 30% valve uprate), with full soft on the rear, provides very firm, but not harsh damping, and works very well indeed, along with anti-roll bars front and rear, anti-tramp bars and poly bushes everywhere!

First question is what is wrong with the existing springs? The original 7-leaf spring were a bit stiffer than the later 5-leaf, but usually controlled axle tramp a bit better as a result.

The saloon springs changed from 7 to 5 leaf but the rating was intended to be the same - your comment on 'a bit stiffer' interests me as I'd like to know whwere that comes from.

A stiffer spring will definately change the tramp-ing behaviour but the amount of axle torque (engine torque in low gear) is the other major factor - hence not much of an issue on MM and SII saloons but more of an issue on Minor 1000 saloons

Ray,

Some years ago I did some calculations on the spring leaves and the result indicated a small increase in stiffness of the 7-leaf, but it was not by much. The other factor I found was the state of the leaves themselves, the 7-leaf seemed more prone to stiffening up with less than clean and lubricated leaves - probably quite the norm? A small increase in the inter-leaf friction changes the spring characteristics considerably, although theoretically not the static stiffness, but might help to reduce tramp through increased friction damping?

Yes, 1st gear torque is the key and the 1098 exerts 11% more torque on the axle than the 948 (combination of engne torque and diff ratio), which does nothing to manage the well-known tramp!

I came across a new 7-leaf spring during the restoration, but after fitting it found it was softer than the original from 1958, so I refitted that. Judging by postings on this forum, the setting and tempering of new springs may not be quite the same as the original.

FWIY, I fitted a 'cheap' Mr Grumpy's basic oil telescopic damper kit (with 45 degree angled Gabriel dampers) to the rear of my 1275cc Traveller back in 1995, 38,000 miles ago, and it's still performing well, certainly far better than I ever remember the lever arm ones doing, even after I replaced them for 'recon' units.

the 7-leaf seemed more prone to stiffening up with less than clean and lubricated leaves - probably quite the norm?

ah - the lubricated vs rusty leaf issue... cerainly if the friction increases between them the spring will get stiffer and more leaves = more stiffness if they won't slide.

Modern repro parts can be a real problem - leaf springs are not exempt from this. I've had one spring from a pair flatten out - although that wasn't a Minor, it was a pair of new springs. Have heard of this on Minors also.
On that particula one, the old springs were fanned out with crusted rust in between. They were so bad it should have failed an MOT and the only suspension travel was in the tyre! I'm used to seeing leaf springs wear away and get thinner - these ones were the opposite and boy did it change the car when they were replaced.