Morris Minor Owners Club

hi
does anyone know where i can get hold of a rear 1" lowering block kit ?? for a late traveller
cheers
Neil

this is 1.5 inches http://morrisminorspares.co.uk/shop/pro ... ed908efd08 its the closest they have got

Usually the suspension has sagged down more than enough without 'lowering blocks'! You must maintain some suspension movement - how much distance is there from the tip of the bump stop to the chassis pad ? Most Traveller owners are looking for new springs to raise the rear suspension - or fitting longer shackles !

I'm not too sure about this, so someone will come along soon and confirm or refute:

I thought that lowering blocks increase the tendency for spring wind-up / axle-tramp. Minors have enough of this problem without doing anything to increase it.

This is just to sound a note of caution.
Don

Indeed they do! Gives the axle more leverage on the spring.

i didnt think that original engines had enough power to do that... i thought it was bigger engines that made them twist.

Oh it's perfectly possible - I had the broken half-shaft to prove it!

i've had lowering blocks on my 7 leaf springs for 5000miles (6 months) and not really noticed any axle tramp. didn't get much before i fitted the lowering blocks either. maybe i'm just too gentle with her

never broken a half shaft in the 30,000 miles i've done either, even with 185 tyres offering a lot of grip before slipping. maybe the previous owner kindly fitted hardened shafts without telling me!

The 7 leaf springs are the give-away!

then if he's putting them on a traveller he'll be fine!

what about on a morris minor splitty? it has brand new springs on it, shackles the lot, does anyone have any pictures of one lowered on blocks?

It's not a question of how it 'looks' - it's a matter of how much suspension movement is left bewteen the bump stops and the chassis. You need ~ 2" minimum or it will almost constantly be thumping the stops.

I say drop the mother , chop ya stops , avoid speed bumps and fat birds
When the majority of folk on this forum would seriously advise against something , it's clearly the bodacious and righteous thing to do .
Esm sell em £20 ish ,reckon they've got loads judging by their popularity .

anyone got any pictures? and how much would I need to lower the front with the ones from esm?

If you fit 1.5" lowering blocks on the back (ESM Pt No: SUS755 £29.95 plus VAT plus P&P) you can lower the front by 'one' spline which equals 1.5" to level the car but that is dependent upon the suspension being in good condition and the rear springs not having settled. You may have to play with the torsion bar reaction lever vernier adjusting plates (Pt No: SUS128) to get it exactly as you want it.

With 7-leaf springs there is a very easy way to lower the rear - also softens it slightly, which on a traveller is no bad thing (unless you want to carry heavy loads, but then you shouldn't be lowering it in the first place!).

The work involved is maybe a little more, but what you do is to support the car independently of the rear axle, undo the 'U' bolts, and jack the axle up so that you can get at the nut on the end of the centre pin that holds the leaves together. BEFORE attempting to undo the nut use 2 G-clamps to hold the leaves together, making sure that you clamp all 7 leaves. Then carefully undo the centre nut, knock the pin up and out of the spring and carefully release the G-clamps. Take the bottom, smallest leaf and turn it upside down and place it on top of the longest leaf.

Start to replace the centre pin down through the upside-down bottom leaf and gradually clamp the leaves back together, making sure that the centre pin is tapped through the leaf pack. Once fully clamped, replace the nut and washer, and while you are there fit new polyurethane spring pads.

Also would be worth fitting new polyurethane bushes to both ends of the spring while you have it all apart!

Finally at the rear, unless they bump stops are fairly new, it would be worthwhile replacing them, cutting 1" off the top and reshape them to recreate the tapered top. They will have more to do with lowered suspension, but will still last a long time.

As Phil suggests, lower the front by one spline to match the new lowered rear.

Did all this 44 years ago on our 1958 2-door, which also has 7-leaf springs (slightly thinner leaves than a traveller) and never regretted it.