Morris Minor Owners Club

Can anyone tell me the 'official' position for a three spoke steering wheel - is it one spoke pointing straight down, with the other two at roughly 2 and 4 o'clock, or is it pointing up?

I’ve never given that one a thought, the common sense position would be your first suggestion.

One straight up at 12 o'clock and 20 to and 20 past on mine with M right way up on horn push. Don't know if it's original but seems natural

Conventionally, it would be in a Y configuration; don't forget that the MM and early SII had the Speedo in front of the driver.
You wouldn't want a 'spoke' obscuring the speedo, being multi-spoke it would be even worse as it wavered across the front of the speedo while you drive along....

You can't use the workshop manual as a reference, since they obviously expect the dealership staff to know how they looked when delivered.
There's about 4 or 5 drawings in the manual showing the steering wheel, all with it at different angles...

But for evidence m'laud, I present as exhibit 1, the classic photo of the 1,000,000 coming off the production line....
. .
Considering the car is going straight following the guide bars, I would suggest that in the rush to produce them they were quite sloppy about the actual position, if you look closely at the steering wheel...
.

The "banjo" steering wheel should be fitted with the top spokes in a vertical position.
That way, the screw hole for the horn push is at the bottom which is where it needs to be in order for the centre badge to be the correct way up

Isn't it also the case that the later style safety wheel was created so your head went through the gap as opposed to hitting the 12 o'clock spokes.

You’d need to have an extra small head!!———— and lower said head to align.

ManyMinors wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 8:08 pm The "banjo" steering wheel should be fitted with the top spokes in a vertical position.
That way, the screw hole for the horn push is at the bottom which is where it needs to be in order for the centre badge to be the correct way up

I wouldn't know about that, I've got the plain Brown button

I've just watched this film of the 10,000th car off the production line in 1950.
https://youtu.be/PDYKDdHg98E
Much as the 1,000,000 car seems to have the spoke at 1 o'clock, the LHD ones on the line seem to have it at 11 o'clock....
Very curious.

From looking at pictures of Minor dashboards, it seems the majority with three spoke wheels have a single spoke pointing vertically upwards - but some are the opposite way round. I'm guessing that some people aren't fussy when it comes to putting the wheel back on, hence the variations. Mine has a spoke pointing downwards, but its not quite exactly positioned in the vertical when driving straight ahead. Of course, the wheel will have to come off to correct this, but I don't have a big enough box spanner. I see Moss make one 'available to special order', but is there a metric equivalent? I seem to recall someone using a 24mm socket?

myoldjalopy wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 10:35 am From looking at pictures of Minor dashboards, it seems the majority with three spoke wheels have a single spoke pointing vertically upwards - but some are the opposite way round. I'm guessing that some people aren't fussy when it comes to putting the wheel back on, hence the variations. Mine has a spoke pointing downwards, but its not quite exactly positioned in the vertical when driving straight ahead. Of course, the wheel will have to come off to correct this, but I don't have a big enough box spanner. I see Moss make one 'available to special order', but is there a metric equivalent? I seem to recall someone using a 24mm socket?

Basil's is Y configuration, but like yours is a bit off to one side when wheels are straight.
He's a SII, so I don't know if the nut changed on the latter banjo.
I've never had the wheel off, but I did use my vernier on it and got 37.5mm, so given the size of it I would think a 38mm would do the job.
Or, that converts to 1in 15/32nd, so 1.5" AF

Thanks for that, mine is a SII as well - but consulting the workshop manual it says to use a 7/8" box spanner....and on the spanner size sticky on here it gives 3/4" Whitworth, so I'm still not clear.......

Workshop manual

Original Service Parts List AKD-743

So even works documentation differs!

Upside down Y on test review

Wes wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 1:19 pm Upside down Y on test review

Well that confirms it for 62-64 duotone models like mine at least ... unless the wheels aren't straight

myoldjalopy wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 12:42 pm Thanks for that, mine is a SII as well - but consulting the workshop manual it says to use a 7/8" box spanner....and on the spanner size sticky on here it gives 3/4" Whitworth, so I'm still not clear.......

The W/S manual assumes using Whit tools as the standard of the era.
See here:
7/8"BSW is ... fanfare please.... 1.48"AF in decimal

myoldjalopy wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 10:35 am From looking at pictures of Minor dashboards, it seems the majority with three spoke wheels have a single spoke pointing vertically upwards - but some are the opposite way round. I'm guessing that some people aren't fussy when it comes to putting the wheel back on, hence the variations. Mine has a spoke pointing downwards, but its not quite exactly positioned in the vertical when driving straight ahead. Of course, the wheel will have to come off to correct this, but I don't have a big enough box spanner. I see Moss make one 'available to special order', but is there a metric equivalent? I seem to recall someone using a 24mm socket?

viewtopic.php?p=679098&hilit=Steering+wheel+nut#p679098

Answer courtesy of Phil is 3/4" BSW 7/8" BSF.
Bought mine off Fleabay

Bill_qaz wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 3:58 pm

myoldjalopy wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 10:35 am From looking at pictures of Minor dashboards, it seems the majority with three spoke wheels have a single spoke pointing vertically upwards - but some are the opposite way round. I'm guessing that some people aren't fussy when it comes to putting the wheel back on, hence the variations. Mine has a spoke pointing downwards, but its not quite exactly positioned in the vertical when driving straight ahead. Of course, the wheel will have to come off to correct this, but I don't have a big enough box spanner. I see Moss make one 'available to special order', but is there a metric equivalent? I seem to recall someone using a 24mm socket?

viewtopic.php?p=679098&hilit=Steering+wheel+nut#p679098

Answer courtesy of Phil is 3/4" BSW 7/8" BSF.
Bought mine off Fleabay

Ummm... just because it is on a DIY list from one of the forum members doesn't mean there's not a typo somewhere.
The W/S manual does say 7/8th Box Spanner, so that would have been 7/8W.
Actually, the SII (presumably also MM) has a different Nut, so perhaps it's a different size.
The Pt No is ACA 5291, whereas the latter ones on the S3/S5 are ACH6001....

On the basis of Bill's and Phil's comments I was going to get something like this: https://www.primetools.co.uk/product/me ... 8-175mm-7/
But if the nut on SII's is different to later cars, I'm still not quite sure. Can anyone confirm exactly which size box spanner I will need for the SII steering wheel nut?