Morris Minor Owners Club

I have to confess, this one has got me stumped, it sounds kind of like if you have a spoked wheel spinning and put a stick in it, a sort of clattery rattle.

Its intermittent, occasionally a bump in the road will cause the noise for a second, turning left sharply at fairly low speed does it (~10mph), and at fairly high revs while driving (35mph in 3rd gear) and above 50mph in top and whatever it is, starts rattleing away is its clattery way.

Its quite annoying as the car did not do this before the restoration.

I have recently changed the exhaust, changed the grommets on the bonnet release as I thought it might be that rattling, re-bushed the front right suspension, tightened the lever arm damper bolts and checked the front right for play- greased the suspension and steering- seems to be ok. I also tightened the bolts holding on the hockey sticks and front panel and I thought it might be panel related as all these bits were replaced during the "rolling resto".

What have I done?? Ideas on a postcard please!!

Have you put EP 90 oil in the steering rack lately?? If that cures
it temporarily then you probably need to tighten up the rack dampers
by removing shims. Have you renewed the TIE-Rod rubbers lately,
and checked that the bolt at the other end of the tie rod is a snug fit?
I have seen them where the tie rod is able to jiggle about in the
Fork which is bolted to the Lower suspension arm.

Good tip Willie! Thats one area I haven't done yet since getting the old Trav MOT'd.

It does actually sound like it could be from the rack area, I'll go and have a look tomorrow, and the tie rod rubbers don;t look their best!

Thanks!

Another favourite is to tap the rear bottom area of the front wing.
Behind the wing is a 'U' shaped thin bracket which is meant to be
bent into the position where it holds the wing in the correct alignment
with the door etc. This can give an irritating rattle if not set correctly.

chickenjohn wrote:I have to confess, this one has got me stumped, it sounds kind of like if you have a spoked wheel spinning and put a stick in it, a sort of clattery rattle.

From that description, it sounds like a broken brake spring hanging in the drum and touching it from time to time. Whip the drum off on that side and have a gander.

Tie bar rubbers are new, and the noise is still, there, am now going to top up the rack oil and look inside the drum, thanks for the tips guys!

Probably a silly thought,

Have you looked at the bonnet release spring?

Colin

Colin, thanks, I've been fiddling with that, putting grommets in etc on the bonnet release mechanism. I was thinking of tying it up with gaffa tape nd see if that damps it.

I've oilled the steering rack, will take the car up to 50mph tomorrow and see if it still rattles.(if I can find a road not busy enough!)

check that the gearbox steady cable is connected and that the fan is not contacting any ancillaries . Is the speedo reading correctly i.e not jumping about?. Are the brake backplates secure?

OK, steering rack oilled again, brake drum off- all springs present and correct and backplate firm, fan not contacting, gearbox steady cable was replaced only a few years ago (to try and cure clutch judder) .

Interestingly Jonathon the speedo is a little variable, what do you have in mind??

I will try and get the car up to 50mph tomorrow and see if mystery noise is still there.

Thanks for all your suggestions guys!

Could also be wear in the inner ball joint on the rack. If so it will eventually become permanent and only solution is a new rack. However ours has had this noise for about 50,000 miles and we might fix it in the winter when we have a major srevice done.

Since taking the cylinder head off to replace a burnt exhaust valve(engine now runs much smoother!!) the funny springy rattle noise has almost completely dissapeared

Only now apparent (very slightly and transiently) when going over a bump on the motorway at 60-70mph!

Could it have been the miss-firing engine tha was vibrating something causing the rattle??

Very strange, but at least it doesn't annoy me anymore, whatever it was??

It might have been pinking! Does it still occur but only under load??

If so retard the ignition a touch and it'll probably go away altogether

Good suggestion John, but it was definitely not pinking as it used to make the noise when making a sharp left turn at low speed and over bumps in the road (we have a lot of those in East Kent!). Not connected to engine speed or load, except the engine vibration would start the rattle.

I'm sure it was body/ suspension or steering gear related.

the speedo is a little variable

A broken strand in the speedo cable could be catching as it goes round.