Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi

I am working through the mechanical parts of the 1970 van, and have a couple of questions I hope you might help me with - have tried searching, but did not find anything.

1. I have marina brakes (i think) there is a flex pipe to the vertical and then a fixed pipe to the caliper - is there any reason why there is not just a flexible pipe straight to the caliper? I was going to replace the left hand caliper this evening, and it has the connection very close to where the flexible is, right next to the bleed nipple, but turns out a RH caliper, not a LH caliper was delivered! 2. There is a clamp next to the telescopic shock which does not seem to do anything - does it hold the two parts of the suspension together, and should I be worried that both sides were a bit loose? Regards
David

David. I would question if the Flexi hose fitted is long enough to allow for steering movement.looks like whoever fitted the brake conversion used the original drum brake hose, and then had to use the pipe arrangement as a workaround . I think I would be getting a new longer hose.

The clamp seems to me to be part of the arrangement for attaching the tele damper to the suspension arm, if so it shouldn't be loose.
Somewhere on this site there are photos from Phil the Hill showing his Marina conversion which will show you how it should be done, use search to find
Cheers John G

Flexible pipes are routed to avoid any risk of rubbing or other damage. They tend to be short connecting lengths. You don’t see lon flexible hoses fitted from master cylinder to front/rear.

You appear to have a slightly different damper set up than my Owen Burton unit but the instructions for my kit shows there should be a packing piece between the two lower suspension arms.

Whatever you do, I would be replacing that pan head roofing bolt with a proper bolt.

Phil

You do have Marina/Ital disc brakes fitted.

The brake calipers should be fitted to the rear of the swivel and not to the front as shown in your photos.

Fitting the caliper to the rear of the swivel means that both the flexible pipe and metal pipes are routed correctly.

New Marina/Ital calipers have different pipe connections.

If you have the calipers fitted as shown above - a new say L/H caliper will only suit the R/H position.

It is possible to remove the calipers and mounting brackets and fit the calipers to the correct side.

Below is a photo of how the Marina/Ital disc brake set up should be fitted - note the run of both the flexible and metal pipes.
The Marina/Ital flexible/metal pipes have UNF threads so the original Minor flexible pipe with BSF threads cannot be used. You appear to have the SPAX tele damper kit fitted. The bracket/clamp is correct but those clamp bolts are not suitable for the job. They should be proper bolts of at least 8.8 tensile strength. The inner end of the damper mount is secured by the bolt that clamps the thick/thin arms together. There should be spacers between the two clamp faces.
The clamp bracket holds the outer end of the damper mount hard against the indented rear face of the thick suspension arm as there is no other way of holding the outer end of the damper mount in place. It is an improvised damper mount but it does work and is no better or no worse than the improvised bottom tele damper mount fitted to later Morris Itals by B.L.

Gents

Thank you all for your replies - the joys of working with non standard parts, and the wonder of work performed by previous owners!

Just after posting and while slipping off to sleep it did cross my mind that the calipers on my TR4 are at the back of the disks, and that the Van's did not look right!

I will get the calipers swapped over and those bolts replaced. At some point I will do all the suspension bushings as they are looking a bit old, but I cannot feel any movement at the moment.

Cheers
David

I would suggest that you fit poly bushes to the eye bolts and top trunnion pivot. Fit a poly bush to the front of the tie bar for stiffness and a rubber bush to the rear of the tie bar for articulation. Lubricate the poly bushes with white grease when fitting or even fit a grease nipple as below:-

Phil

Thanks for that comment on the bushes, I was looking and trying to decide between poly and rubber. On the roads around Somerset, I don't want it to be too hard.
Would you use poly or rubber on the shock absorber top and bottom?

Regards and thanks again.
David

There are only three points you can use either poly or rubber bushes and they are:- 1. Eye bolt bush, 2. Top trunnion bushes. 3. Tie bar bushes.
I would use poly for No's 1 & 2 and a mixture of rubber and poly as described above for the tie bar.