Morris Minor Owners Club

Hello again all

Just looking for some opinions - when going over any parts of the road that have a suddenly dip (say small potholes or bridge expansion slots) the offside of the car emits quite a loud squeak. This doesn't happen when going over bumps strangely and is mostly, but not always coming from the nearside.

I've checked the eyebolt holes and nuts and booth seem fine and the damper bolts are all tight and damper itself is topped up with oil. Looking at the bushes in reunions they seem fine, but I'm no expert in that area unfortunately.

Any thoughts?

have a look at the rear of the torsion bar,where it fits at the cross member, if the attachment is corroded it can collapse ,if you lift the carpet above the cross member a sure sign is if .the floor is starting to be pushed up.

Check the seat welds as well. My passenger seat had a broken seat weld which was almost undetectable but potholes did make the car squeak when it was occupied, I only discovered the broken weld when refurbing the seats and lo and behold the squeak has gone. I spent ages checking all the mechanical bits too....

I had a noise like a sigh and assumed it was from the passenger side as it only happened when the wife sat there. Turned out to be the wife not liking pot holes

evening all! got out this afternoon and had a nosey under the car, but all seems present and correct - eyebolt holes look ok, torsion bar holder on crossmember all looks ok, seat bolts ok, and all bushes (seem) to be in good nick. photos attached in case anyone can see anything obvious!

Might not be the cause of squeak but I would fit some poly bushes to the tie bars? They do look a little squeezed.

Get someone to bounce the car up and down on the front wing on each side and get under and listen for where the noise is coming from.

Chances are, it will be worn eyebolt bushes - sometimes they look OK from outside but when you dismantle them, they turn out to be worn out, sometimes to the point that the fulcrum pin is rubbing against the eyebolt, giving grinding metal-to-metal contact until the pin eventually wears through and snaps!

They end up looking like this:



Replace with more durable polyurethane bushes such as the green ones shown in the bottom pic, which last years.

get hold of the exhaust and give it a pull about looks a bit close to the frame of the car.

Tell you what, unless it sends you mad, live with it for a bit. I had a really annoying squeak from the back of my '61 saloon. All investigation proved useless. After 6 months it disappeared. Never heard it since and sailed through all MOT's ever since.
I reckon they do these things to keep us on our toes.

If nothing damaged or looking like needs sorting, just, spray some WD40 or some such around the torsion bar joints (basically anything that can move) see what happens. It stopped mine from squeaking. I'm with Steve old cars just like to make noises, doesn't always mean catastrophe is round the corner.