Morris Minor Owners Club

Having issues with reverse. Car shakes & judders in reverse gear.

Any ideas?

Unless I give it a good amount of rev’s it won’t gentle reverse at low rpms

Check the condition of the engine steady bar rubbers and body mount metal. The steady bar is located under the battery and connects the body with the engine so steadying the engine. The engine steady bar should just hold the engine in a neutral position so not too tight or too slack
Also check the condition of the engine and gearbox rubber mountings.

I bet the gearbox steady wire has broken, or it’s too slack.

Les
I did originally consider the engine steady cable but whilst the engine steady cable may be broken it should in its broken state have no effect on the ability to reverse the car in a normal manner i.e. without judder.
The engine steady cable is there to prevent any forward movement of the power unit relative to the chassis. See BMC wksp manual Section A.A.36.
The engine tie rod is there to deal with any clutch judder that occurs. See BMC wksp manual Section A.A.37.
One down side of fitting the BMC engine tie rod (which was a mid production modification as was the gearbox steady wire) is the failure of the body mounting under the battery.
A better solution to the engine steady bar body mount failure is to fit the Grumpys engine steady bar which has the body mounting bolted to the damper cross member. The Grumpys kit does not fail and holds the engine steady.
I had similar problems to the OP on my Ser 2. I fitted the Grumpys kit and the problem disappeared never to reappear.
https://www.morrisminorspares.com/engin ... it-p830094

Thanks Phil, yes I realise the cable restrains the foreward movement, however years ago it took me a long while to eliminate a judder in reverse, only to find the said cable had snapped, replacing solved the problem. So rightly or wrongly I always suspect the cable with these symptoms. Maybe we’ll find out !

I will jack the car up tomorrow & inspect the gearbox steady cable to see if it is slack or indeed broken.

I’ll also check the engine steady cable for any slack or over tension

Sorry to but in but how tight should the cable at gearbox be.
Stevie.

It should just start to pull on the gearbox but only just, not to move it.

as Phil said in the first post also take a close look at the engine mounts. the front ones can become completely detached from their backing plates and it may not be obvious until you lift the engine up.

If the engine mounts were detached would you not notice that all the time? As a posed to only shaking in reverse?

I had this issue for years and tried many if not all of the suggestions. I eventually solved mine by getting the flywheel refaced.

I was thinking it was something internal. The car had sat parked up for years, so the clutch wouldn’t be the smoothest but that could be due to the flywheel sticking maybe. I think I’ve a slight oil leak from the gearbox anyway so maybe that’s a good time to inspect clutch & flywheel aswell as fix any leaks.

MoggyMatilda wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 5:00 pm If the engine mounts were detached would you not notice that all the time? As a posed to only shaking in reverse?

not necessarily, if it is just one it can work fine in the forward direction but lift up under reverse