Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi folks

Thought it best to post here as although my Moggy will remain pretty much stock, it will be modified mechanically a tad. However more for making it a better daily used car than a custom or performance car. I'll slowly work around the car but one thing i'd like to do is upgrade to telescopic dampers and also lower the car slightly.

The car came with stock rims and 145/165 combo tyres. Gives it a nice little stance but needs to be dropped all round to lose some of gap between the wings. So i'm looking at an 1.5" drop all round, nothing drastic. I'm changing to either the wider steel pick-up wheels or 13" Rostyles with similar tyres when funds allow. It will run similar sized radial tyres and not low profiles, not my thing on a classic to be honest but each to their own. I can't see any rubbing issues with such a small drop.

I'll save the fitment of the rear shocks for another post but it's the front end lowering i'm looking for some advice on.

Once the motor is back in my next job is to totally rebuild my front suspension and work in the telescopic kit whilst i'm there taking it all apart. As I don't want to be under the car replacing parts every year so i'm replacing everything, kingpins, bushes the lot.

The lowering blocks for the rear are 1.5" and from what I have read I can get that same drop at the front buy taking off the torsion bar lever, moving it a spline and refitting it. Just a little confused on which way to adjust the splines. Also thinking that the shocks in the new kit may be a tad long if the cars going to be dropped 1.5".

So any tips or major do's and don'ts for first of all, dismantling and rebuilding the front suspension and also for adjusting the torsion bar and hopefully get a 1.5" drop? I now have a BMC manual to help guide me but always interested in hearing tips and experiences in doing the job. First of all I was going to get it as clean as possible and pre soak all the fasteners for a good few days.

Any advice gratefully received

Cheers Dan

The shocks on a lowered car won't be a problem. So long as all the bump stops are in place to save the shocks running out of travel. Lowering 1.5 inches is very common, so the kits on the market are designed to accommodate that.

A tip for lowering the front is, once the torsion bar is unloaded, to measure the distance between the ground and the end of the arm. You then have to knock the arm back off the spline and UP on notch, but you can re-measure the distance from arm to ground to check it's only changed by about 1.5 inches. It's all too easy to go two splines by accident!

Good stuff, thanks for the info. Put simply for a simple guy I'll start soaking the front end with plusgas and order some parts then. Pretty sure i'll be back with more questions.

Appreciate the help

Cheers Dan

It's a serious mistake to lower the front for a road car - it will simply hammer the bump stops through the inner wings......unless you fit uprated torsion bars of course. You can cut down the bump stops slightly - but it will still bottom out - regularly. The other snag is that as you lower - so you increase the positive camber on the front wheels - not good...... A little negative camber helps the handling greatly........

Tyres will wear out in weeks