Morris Minor Owners Club

My nearside damper is leaking. The other one may need changing?
Can you describe the best solution to replace. I have a new unit from ESM. Thanks

The basic process should be covered in the workshop manual or Haynes manual. It is necessary to place an appropriate piece of wood under the front chassis box section on the side you are working on and support the car on an axle stand. Then using a jack the load is taken off the suspension by jacking under the lower suspension arm as far out as possible. The aim is simply to take the weight off the suspension so that it is "neutral" and not to jack up too far. Of course you will have loosened the wheel nuts when the car was on the ground and removed the road wheel once the car was jacked up. When I replaced my front lever acting dampers I cheated slightly and fitted new upper trunnion pivot pins at the same time and of course new bushes (in my case polyurethane ones). I did this because it can be very difficult to remove the tapered pivot pin from the arm of the damper. It is no issue to exchange your old damper with the old pivot pin still attached.

You will also need 2x new lock tab washers per side for mounting the damper to the bulkhead and you may also wish to buy 4x new bolts per side as well.

Give everything a good soak in release agent at least 24 hours before you try to undo it. I like PlusGas myself.

https://www.morrisminorspares.com/front ... es-p830516


Stephen

It is best and advisable to replace the dampers a a pair that is both R/H & L/H damper units at the same time.
It is highly unlikely that a new and a used damper have the same damping rate and the difference could unsettle the car and effect the handling.
I would agree with the above in that it can be quite difficult to remove the top pivot pin from the damper arm because of the shallow taper. Fitting new top pivot pins to the the damper arms makes for a much easier job.
Fill the dampers with straight 30 grade oil for better damping.

Hello Phil. Thank you for your help. I have read the details, i am not sure whether I have the tools? Would they be basic spanners to swap the unit or snap-on top quality stuff? Also i might need large imperial sizes? Thanks, Ann

The largest imperial spanner you will need is a 3/4" AF to undo/tighten the top pin nuts and a 1/4" Whit to undo the damper mount bolts.
Make sure that the brake hose is not put under any strain when the top trunnion is released from the pin.
With the load off the torsion bar the top trunnion after removing the outer bush can be twisted off the pin. Made all the much easier with the damper unmounted from the crossmember.