Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi all.... been doing a few mods to the 4 door to improve the handling as it was very 'lively' on the rear end especially at speed. My 2 door handles very well, anti roll bar on the front and an extra leaf in the rear springs to balance it...... a set up that has served me well for many thousands of miles. so I thought I'd try to replicate it......

-I added an extra leaf to the rear springs (the longest one) and made some new spring clips
-Checked out the rear shocks
-serviced front suspension with new bushes, replaced the shocks (worn)
-fitted an anti roll bar

So mechanically it is now exactly the same as my 2 door..... however above 40 the rear end was still VERY twitchy, changing lane on the dual carriage way had to be done with extreme care as the car would dramatically over steer and just generally seemed very sloppy.

I was about to go back and check the rear axle over again, when I though about tyres......

My 2 door has bridgestones on the front, which are a VERY soft tyre and Nangkangs on the rear, which are much harder. My 4 door had the reverse.... so I swapped them.....front to rear...... and what a difference! The handling is now identical!

The bridgestones appear to have very soft walls and the tyre easily deforms allowing the car to slop from side to side (yes I have checked all the pressures!).... these on the rear mean that it waves all over the place! Putting the harder tyres on the rear seems to have stiffened it all up. I have lost some sharpness on the steering but the overall handling is still improrved on the original set up as the ARB has made it more responsive anyway.

Anyone experienced something similar? Or can anyone recommend some decent tyres?

Thanks Colin

I suspect that there is no single right answer to this. I've been using Firestone and then Bridgestone 145 x 14 all round for years, and cannot fault them. I tried some Japanese tyres once. Although they stuck to the road OK, the sqeal going round corners (even slowly) was horrendous!

i had the same problem with bridgestones.. so glad they were not the first tyres i fitted to my moggy or i would not still be driving moggies now! I purchased a set of toyo tyres all round and find them great. i sold the bridgestones after 1 year at a great loss but i got my moggy back!!

Firestones were great.... a good all rounder. My brother had bridgstones all round and got on ok..... they wore very badly on the outside edges on the left side, due to the speed he takes roundabouts at!

i've got 185 yokohama tyres all round. it's certainly grippy

the back end will only scuffle when pulling out of junctions ambitiously, in the wet!

i've got an arb at the front and 7 leafs on the back of my 4 door. it does seem a bit stiff at the rear, how did you get your 6 leaves? take one out of some 7's?

Added extra to 5
My recipe for 6 leaves is.....

Take off the U bolts, spring clips and remove the nut from the bolt that runs through the centre of the spring.

Take the longest leaf from a redundant set of springs.

Reassemble and make a new set of spring clips.

There is just enough room on the bolt running through the spring and the U bolts

Doubling the longest leaf seems to be a good compromise and is FREE if you have an old pair of springs knocking around and you don't have to get into removing the front spring shackle