Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi, 1954 ser11 splittie.
Engine mountings tired & soft. Towers rusty. Removed mtgs & towers, stripped & painted same & refitted using new mtgs. When i started engine i experienced vibration on the steering wheel and when i am on the road. Is this due to harder mtgs so just wait for things to settle down? Any comments please.
Bill. [frame][/frame]

Probably the horrible 'far too hard' mountings some suppliers are flogging these days. May be worth slackening all the nuts on the mounts -just slightly - and taking a short run to see if it settles down any - if so -nip up the nuts of course. If not - re-use the old mounts! Maybe Declan could get interested in making up some polyurethane mounts to the correct shore spec???

Thanks for reply. I did think that the mtgs were hard with no movement at tick over. Sadly , old mtgs were quite bad ( prob originals) and worse still- the bin man came on Tues. Will try your sugg & poss try another supplier.
Regards,
Bill.

I have suggested in the past drilling some holes through the rubber to 'weaken' the mounts, and I think some have had a degree of success doing this. I'm rather guessing all the suppliers probably get these from the same source - but maybe someone has found some 'pliable' ones.

I had the same problem when I replaced the front mounts a couple of years ago. I have recently bought 2 NOS mounts on eBay from Italy and they are definitely much softer rubber. The car is well on the way to being reassembled after a complete strip down and respray completed 3 weeks ago, and the new mounts are in place, so will see what they are like in 2/3 weeks' time.

Roy,
It is something I could look in to. On the Bully web site they mention that their engine mount is to the correct spec
Quote: "MNT101 Superior Quality correct spec rubber compound"
Can anybody verify this?
They certainly do not look like good quality.

Richard-can you measure the NOS part shore?

Regards
Declan

See also thread:-
http://www.mmoc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f= ... ss#p576790
The NOS rubber engine mountings I have were obtained from club spares.

Declan,

I don't have a durometer, nor obvious access to one (anyone local to Oxford have one to test?), but the equivalent thumbnail test shows a significant difference in Shore hardness. The 2 year old new ones resist the thumbnail almost completely, whereas the NOS allow a very noticeable penetration. Very unscientific, I know!!

Thanks Richard.
I have just read Phil's thread and he has put the nail on it. 60 shore A is what is required.
Thanks Phil.

Regards
Declan

Declan
When Mike came and checked the shore harness of my NOS engine mounting rubbers he also checked the genuine BMC engine mounting rubbers fitted to my Minor and they were also 60 shore A.
He also checked various rubber/poly bushes/pads (used as a generic term) from different suppliers and which gave various shore readings but that is another story.
Phil

Phil,
Did you keep a record of it? That would be good to have.
Regards
Declan

What ho, chums!
Just dug out my original notes and I see that Phil's NOS front engine mount rubbers were Shore A 50-55 (a correction to what I wrote in the original thread). Mine, bought from Bull Motif a couple of years ago are for the LHS of my engine gearbox 55-60 and on the RHS 65-70, all much harder than NOS and this transmits irritating vibration around 30-37 mph in top gear. My conclusion is that we don't want to be above Shore A 60. I'm going to try them drilled to see if this helps.

For a feel as to what these Shore A numbers mean see here
file:///C:/Users/Mike/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/KZ6HRZZA/paramount_durometer_scale_guide%20(1).pdf
This ties up, I think, with Mr Islip's finger nail test.

Re Declan's request for the Shore A hardnesses for polybushes, etc I'll put them in a fresh thread. Regards, MikeN.

PS I'm sorry that the link above doesn't seem to "link". What have I done wrong?

What have I done wrong?

That "link" describes where the file is on your computer which is accessible to you but not to the internet (A good thing!)

Hey Ho Thanks all. Found my old mounts in the recycle bin. Certainly showing their age but aren't we all? (speaking for myself-12 yrs older than my Morris) I cleaned them up and used Back to Black on them and they look ok. Certainly soft but fatter than the new ones which are very hard. Spent Sat am putting them back on and vibration gone!! Will keep an eye on the messageboard re softer mounts.

Bill

Send the useless ones back to the supplier and demand a refund.....otherwise they will just keep on supplying garbage.

Thanks Bill! You've settled for certain what we all thought with a proper before and after trial! Regards, MikeN.

Hi,
As a finale, posted my mounts back to Moss Europe and received a full refund no problem. KAV 602 back to normal-- pleasure to drive.
Bill

Well done - and full marks to MOSS for the refund - but will they just send them on the next person who wants mounts, I wonder.....

I have just received a horrible quality engine mount from one of the usual culprits. I needed an example to try and make a suitable part.
I think it is made from Blackpool Rock.
No wonder that owners are having problems.
I will start working on decent ones.

Regards
Declan

I replaced the engine mounts on Boris Minor about 12 months ago and noticed a vast improvement over the previous owners 'new' mounts (that were only 6 months old) . I got mine from BM as they state (as mentioned above) made to original spec.
Now having not driven a minor with original mounts I have no comparison but as I say I did have a noticeable improvement with the BM mounts though.