Morris Minor Owners Club

not enough people have thought about lowering the morris minor and going into a different style to the normal plain resto work. give me your thoughts on this. trying to upload a picture of what i mean.

You need to look at this website:
http://morrisminorowners.co.uk/index.php
and look at some of the long term projects.
However low is not so great nowadays due to the amount of speed bumps and the state of the roads unless you go for hydraulic suspension.

find 'mental morris' on here. that's about as low as physically possible! and that involved a completely new chassis!

Plenty of people have thought about it, and some have done it already. One big problem is that a minor shell wasn't designed to be low - hence people using a seperate chassis to get the current fashion 'slammed' look.

Mine is going to be done on the monocoque and most of the original suspension.... aiming to be as lower than mentalmorris - probably harder but that allows to get the right points to avoid SVA when other mods are done. To drive on the road, mine will need to be raised

Unfortunately I've been doing property development in my spare time (most putting it off / procrastinating) for 18 months so my car projects have slipped. I've managed to delegate nearly all the remaining property maintenance now so I should be back working on the cars when I'm not doing the day job.

how are you intending to lower it on the standard trunnions and leafs? i was looking at adjusting the splines on my morris and i already have a lowering kit on the back but its still not low at all! apparently the adjusting of the splines on the front suspension ruins the handling also?

http://rat-look.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 64&start=0 this is one of the best looking stances i have seen on a morris. i have just looked at that "mental morris" i am completely turned off by how bad those minilites look. morris's should always be kept on pressed steel wheels in my eyes. deep dish morris steels are available.

i think that slammed minors look crap with normal moggy steels, to pull it off the wheel needs to be inline with the body work, it all looks flush then, with standard steelies the wheel looks really far under the arch, much like the mental morris.

Is it low enough?

Thats why i mentioned the deep dish steels that are available from E.S.M they sit flush with the body and give it a subtle custom look. Plastic_orange, do you have a build thread because that morris looks amazing.....

how are you intending to lower it on the standard trunnions and leafs? i was looking at adjusting the splines on my morris and i already have a lowering kit on the back but its still not low at all! apparently the adjusting of the splines on the front suspension ruins the handling also?

To go really low on standard suspension, the shell needs to be modified quite a lot!
The handling problem relates to the misalignemtn between steering rack and steering arms - realigning the rack is no small task!

what about custom trunnions with the stub axle higher up?
it might be an idea to re-enforce the damper too due to magnified loads

teledampers are very useful if you go low, as the risk of grounding the car gets higher - especially the sump!

i've experienced suspension problems with my trunnions bashing into the inside of my wheel arch and bending the arch up. this is what i think will be the major problem if i want to go lower on the standard suspension, however the dampers would make it firmer with less travel, true.

NicholEvans wrote:i have just looked at that "mental morris" i am completely turned off by how bad those minilites look.

thank you.

We once gave a lot of thought and worked out exactly how to channel a Minor over the stock suspension. The idea was to lower the sill to the same height as the under side of the chassis rail. Then ground clearnce remains the same. We sussed out where to cut and it wasnt that difficult. This would then mean standard suspension and travel.

I also looked at making some dropped front spindles using Marina uprights. That was quite a bit of work but would also work.

Unfortunately I do not have the drawings or remember exactly where to cut.

rayofleamington wrote:teledampers are very useful if you go low, as the risk of grounding the car gets higher - especially the sump!

If only it was that easy!
If you want to reduce the suspension travel by lowering, you need to substantially increase the spring rate. Basically if you halve the travel you need to double the spring rate to achieve the same max load at full compression. All the dampers should do is control the unsprung mass (wheel, suspension upright, wishbones etc) and are not a substitute for inadequate spring rates!!
When mine still had the Minor front suspension, normal ride height was lower than the standard top bump stop would allow (so were cut down and softened) but I used coil over shocks with 400 lb springs with torsion bars still on the car. The ride was firm but with the dampers set quite soft bumps were still absorbed but the springs were stiff enough not to let the car or the top trunnions keep bottoming out.
Then at the very low ride height, the front roll centre plummets to below ground level and then you really start needing a stiff anti roll bar (as mine had).
The hardest part is getting the rear low enough to match the front

Lowering the front end (on the standard torsion bars) just smashes the kingpins into the wheel arches - as you have found, and the lower suspension arms also batter the floor of the engine compartment. And as Ray has pointed out - the steering geometry is wrong and leads to severe bump steer. And at the rear - the axle will batter the chassis until it bends/breaks. You MUST retain bump stops front and rear. Adding dampers doesn't make suspension stiffer - dampers just damp! Believe me - many of us HAVE thought about this - and been there/got the T shirt.... Unless willing to cut and shut - it really can't be done - not in a way that will not destroy the car anyway! And if you cut the car about - you are looking at a full SVA test these days.......

I have to differ with you over bump steer on lowered front suspension. I did a lot of measurement on mine with a bump steer gauge with rose jointed track rod ends (shimmed at different heights to establish the best) and even when the ride height was very low, the best position came out to be pretty much where the standard track rod end ball joint is located. DO NOT be tempted to get one of these 'anti bumpsteer' kits that puts the joint below the steering arm as this makes it far, far worse. It is the relative position of the suspension arm pivots with the steering arm pivots that is critical and in relation to each other rather than just the angle of the steering arm.
The akerman goes to sh*t a bit when lowered but doesn't really matter too much as that should only be at very low speeds where this becomes evident (parking etc).

Like BMC says, been there, done that and got the T shirt!!

If you want to reduce the suspension travel by lowering, you need to substantially increase the spring rate. Basically if you halve the travel you need to double the spring rate to achieve the same max load at full compression.

Best option is not to reduce the travel by much - however to do this requires a bit of forethought and some cutting n shutting ;-)
I've already got the uprated torsion bars for mine and [plan to use traveller springs on the rear.
Alternatively, if you go the seperate chassis route, you can do whatever you want.

Uprated shocks are most useful if you've reduced the available travel - increased spring rate will help but won't stop you slamming the stops on bumps.

I lowered my by over 2 splines and marina van adjusters and used a shallow sump with a fiat twin cam as usually the sump hit rocks and things. I then added coil overs with strengthened lower arms and used all brand new trunnions etc. You can then remove the bump stop as the coil overs have their own.