Morris Minor Owners Club

I'll own up now, this is actually for my Rover P6, not the Minor! But the Rover guys don't have any answers....

Has anybody replaced their Smiths heater blower motor with one from a modern car?
There's loads of space in the ventilation box of a P6 so depth and diameter isn't really an issue, but I need something with similar mounting points, and a shaft that you can bolt the Smiths impeller onto.

I thought I'd ask here as Minor folk seem to be a bit more open to experimenting and making modifications, and originality of blower motor isn't something I'll lose sleep on!!

Thanks in advance,
Michael

Here's a previous post on the subject. This is working very well for me:

If the heater fan is truly deceased, you can make a very tidy job of fitting a bilge blower instead. Sounds odd I know, but a bilge blower is 12 volts, designed to move air efficiently, very durable and readily available. I've done that very thing and it works very well. I also wired in a ballast resistor and three position switch so I've got two speeds. This is an Atwood 4 inch blower -- cost about $40.00 US. Google marine supplies.

Now THAT is the sort of out-of-the-box thinking I like!
Googling away now, cheers!

them Rover types - honestly

Morris Men and women have ALL the answers

Lovely Rover - very envious....... I have a pal with a Richlieu Red TC - but I have to say that Spanish Red looks great. Is it an original colour for the TC ?

bmcecosse wrote:Is it an original colour for the TC ?

No it's a Ford colour. A PO resprayed it at home when it lived in Falkirk about 10 years ago, but it hasn't weathered very well - the colour is well-known in the Ford fraternity for going pink and patchy. It was originally Cameron green (BRG to you and me) which you can still see around some of the panels!!
I'm planning to respray it next year. Richelieu red is on my short-list - beautiful colour, and rare too, only available in the last 9 months of production - but I think I may end up going for a non-standard deep navy blue. Strangely, of the 32 colours offered by the factory, not once in 14 years was a navy colour available, and what a shame that was....

But alas, this is wildly off-topic! Forgive me. I'll post some pics of Myrtle the Morris soon!
Michael

Thanks - it is indeed way off topic - as well as the overall futuristic design - it's the amazing dash switches that particularly appeal to me ! And all SO much better than the Triumph 2000 it competed against in the market.

Hello BMCE,

"And all SO much better than the Triumph 2000 it competed against in the market."

Oh no it's not.

Alec

Ahhh the old battle still goes on...........

OH YES IT IS!

Hello both,

I know BMCE started this knowing I would react, but I will say that there is only one feature the Rover has that I prefer over Triumph's design is the De Dion rear axle.
The Triumph 2000 range is certainly more popular today however, partly I think, by the performance superiority of some variants.

Alec

I would say -not so up here, at classic shows I see relatively many P6 and v few T2000. I didn't actually start it up to annoy you Alec - as you well know I have a TR7 which has many chassis similarities to the T2000. But I genuinely believe the P6 is by far the more innovative/futuristic design - the T2000 was always seen as the 'old fogies' car......., However the basic P6 engine was a bit of a let-down, sorted out with the V8 of course, but ohhhhhh dear, the fuel consumption.

Hello BMCE,

it depends how you view it, to me the only interesting part of the Rover is the suspension, I've already mentioned the rear but the front was novel. The Rover's rather rough four cylinder relative to the admittedly old six that the Triumph has is no contest until Rover took a leaf out of the hot rod fratenity's book and stuck a V8 into it, but as you say, fuel consumption!

Triumph's rear supension was a new design and copied and adapted by many other large companies, not least Ford and BMW.
Their use of the Lucas fuel injection was a first for a major British company, regrettably let down by the woefully inadequate training of the dealer's service staff who blamed all engine faults on the injection system.
Arguablly also, they should have won the world cup rally as the winning Ford carried out an illegal gearbox change to allow it to finish; not necessarily an 'old fogies car'.

Alec

Totally agree on the engine. I was right there when the leading Works Mini Clubman had to stand aside for several minutes to allow the T2000 to 'win' the 1970 Scottish Rally......
" Paddy Hopkirk and Brian Culcheth drove works entries in the 1970 Scottish Rally. Whilst Hopkirk had reverted to his favoured Mini, Culcheth’s mount was the former World Cup test car (WRX 902H), now stripped of much of its long-distance equipment in the interests of lightness and in a rather higher state of tune. Some of the car’s features were reminiscent of the original (Group 3) works 2000s, not least the use of a wide-ratio gearbox and fitment of triple Weber carburettors in place of fuel injection, the latter being somewhat controversial and not broadly publicised at the time. Despite formidable competition from Ford, Lancia and his own BLMC team-mate, Culcheth steadily moved up the position board as the rally progressed and, after the leading Lancia was penalised for late running, took a well-earned victory. " However it was hardly 'well earned' after The Mini had to stand aside on Company Orders - and then follow The T2000 through all the last day's stages in case it broke down.... Hopkirk was NOT amused - as he made very clear in the bar that night!

Hello BMCE,

team orders is always contraversial, particularly for the driver who has to hold back. So many instances of that happening in professional motor sport.

Alec

Indeed! Can anyone remember the original point of this thread.........

bmcecosse wrote:However the basic P6 engine was a bit of a let-down, sorted out with the V8 of course, but ohhhhhh dear, the fuel consumption.

...Not completely true, but I take your point. The standard single carb 2000 was a little on the slow side compared to the later incarnations, but you have to bear in mind that this was a Rover aimed at the bank managers and doctors who needed to replace their P4's with something a bit newer. Rover was a company with a reputation built on inlet-over-side-exhaust units of considerable refinement and very little clout. So it's not completely fair to judge the 1957-designed basic engine by mid-70s standard. For its time it was an exceptionally advanced piece of kit - all aluminium engine and gearbox (apart from the cylinder bores and timing case which were iron - the block walls were boxed in with 18 gauge steel plate to save weight), OHC pushing directly onto the valves, straight ports, and heron-headed pistons for hemi-combustion characteristics. When you put that up against a cast-iron, push-rod lump, the advantage of "having six cylinders" seems to pale into insignificance...

The TC built on these design strengths and is a wholly different animal. The basic engine was fully worked over with a view to take it racing. This was a PR exercise to help push the Rover image further towards the more lucrative Jaguar market (whose Mk2 sales, incidentally, had fallen by 70% in the 18 months after the launch of R2000 & T2000), and it worked. If you want to see pictures, my engine is in bits in the garage now. Massive, straight ports (factory polished), huge inlet valves, lightened pistons, a 4-branch tubular exhaust and twin 2" SU carburettors - all standard equipment. Fuel injection was ready to launch in 1970, but axed last minutes over reliability concerns.
The 2000 engine is hugely underrated and completely undeserving of its reputation for being rough and sluggish. It will rev easily past 5000 rpm (which I do regularly) and compared to other (BMC) 4-cyls of the time, is remarkably smooth. There isn't much go at the lower end (although caburetion mod's remedy this), but the mid-range pick-up is savage. 70 mph also returns 40 mpg....

It is a modern-day misconception that the V8 was the performance model. When launched in 68, it was marketed as the prestige motor in the same way as Jaguar's XJ12 - the theory was "more cylinders equals more smoothness", and it was aimed at the traditionalists. They were ALL automatics and came with everything as standard. Until the launch of the short-lived manual 3500S in 71, the 2000TC was very much the performance P6. It will amply outrun an auto V8! But if your engine is tired..... it won't. The V8s are much stronger engines and can easily go for 150k between rebuilds. The 2000 needs a bottom end rebuild every 40k to keep it tight. I think that is the root of its reputation for sluggishness today.

For me, the P6 is the single most underrated British saloon car of the 1960s. Its contribution in terms of the transition of car style, provisions for passive safety, comfort, refinement, roadholding, ergonomics, engineering ambition, and incredible high-volume production (900 p/w for 11 years) is its greatest legacy. But I think the fact that it has no direct successor is the main reason for its absence on the lists of most influential classics. The SD1 wasn't a patch on the vision and scope of the P6.

I won't deny, the Michellotti front is pretty, but the R & T are in different leagues. One was a very good, very pretty, very strong saloon car of considerable merit and image. The other is a complete break from convention, tradition and design constraint.
I don't consider them to be rivals because they were designed for wholly different purposes.
I respect them both equally.... but I'm a Solihull man!

And I think I've had more than my two'pence worth on that!
Michael

Hello Michael,

"The SD1 wasn't a patch on the vision and scope of the P6."

The SD1 was a Britsh Leyland mixture with a Rover car using a Triumph engine (and Gearbox?) so the two companies merge to some degree.

Alec

I agree with all that - but at the time, the 6 cylinder Triumph engine was seen as 'the one to have' - simply because it was 6 cylinders - always good for extra pub points...... I don't decry Rovers - I passed my test (at 17) in our Rover 105S - however shorty after that, word got back to my Dad that the car would do 118 indicated mph......and my use of the car was very much restricted for a while! And 2 litre 4 cylinders are ok - my TR7 goes well enough!

bmcecosse wrote:I agree with all that - but at the time, the 6 cylinder Triumph engine was seen as 'the one to have'

You're totally right. When it came to buying and owning these cars - then and now - it all comes down to what you prefer the look/feel/sound/kudos of.
For me, the biggest draw factor for any car is the history and engineering - the sense that you're driving something that contributed to the industry - but I know others value different things, and I like that!
It's the same with Morrises - I wouldn't bat an eyelid if a friend said he preferred Triumph Heralds. I like Minors because of what they stood for at the time - forward-looking closed-body 40s America styling, bold(-ish) use of IFS and monocoque(-ish....!) construction. A family car the masses could afford that looked forward to a better post-war motoring landscape, rather than hearking back to the pre-war days.
I know that's a bit academic and geeky, but I guess it's because I'm not old enough to have known these cars when they were still on every street corner. That, and our family always owned Fords, so it's nice to get to know some innovative, experimental British engineering, and learn about the industry's history.
It's like iPhones versus the latest Samsung smartphone. One is very, very good at doing the job it was designed for - the other gave birth to wholly new way of looking at the mobile phone, and will be remembered as a Genesis moment.

Michael