ride and handling

[craigy]

Hi,
I recently bought my first Morris Minor and of course joined the owners club. I'm using the car most days and starting to do a rolling restoration. I need lots of advice but lets start with the ride and handling.......

It is a '68 2door, 1275 + 5 speed, disk brakes. I love it.

The suspension is standard at the front apart from an anti-roll bar.
The rear is poly bushed, tele dampers (std oil not adjustable), traveller springs, lowering blocks. It is running 175 tyres on 13" minilites.

The ride is great on smooth roads but the suspension is clearly struggling on anything rough - the rear especially. The front is occasionlly getting through all its travel on sharp bumps and struggles on repeated bumps. The rear occasionally feels like it is completely rigid, I wouldn't like to be in the back!

My thoughts were that the front needs more controlled damping, I think the first bump is controlled but then is is all over the place (bump test when statinary is OK, the dampers are working). The anti roll bar is probably a little too stiff.

I think the rear springs are too stiff and the damping too soft. It is really crashy. Need to sort out this before I can work out anything about the handling.

So, is this what I should expect from my moggie? What upgrades to improve it? I want it to handle well but have a supple ride
Gas shocks at the front? Gas shocks at the rear? Standard springs? Turreted rear?

I've owned live axle caterhams in the past and the ride was much, much better.....

Any advice appreciated,
Thanks,
Craig

[Cam]

I don't think it's your springs, it's probably your dampers. I have gas adjustable telescopic dampers on mine and when front and rear are set to 1/2 setting, the rear is rock hard and the front is very soft, I adjusted mine much harder at the front and softer at the back and it's much better now. Perhaps you need adjustable dampers or more suitable ones than you have fitted.

[Willie]

The 'Lotus' philosophy was for soft springing with severe damping.
Your rear end will be much more supple if you replace the 7 leaf
springs with the later 5 leaf BUT with your 1275 engine you will
undoubtedly suffer from the dreaded rear wheel tramp unless you
fit one of the anti-tramp kits. I changed my '58 seven leaf springs
for 5 leaf and prefer the ride but I do not have a more powerful
engine!

[bmcecosse]

Definitely add some tele dampers at the front - but keep the original lever arm dampers too - in fact I filled mine with EP90. Some negative camber at the front helps too - just a 1/4" plate between the eye bolt and the chassis leg both spreads the load and brings the wheels just very slightly negative. You then need to re-track of course ! Is the rear problem caused by contact with the bump stops ? If so - they can be cut down by up to 2 " to allow more travel.

[craigy]

Thanks for the tips

Had a great drive today.

Definitely going to get tele dampers for the front and investigate getting some negative camber. Then I'll experiment a bit with the rear.

.......got to get these track day thoughts out of my mind at least for a while....

[bmcecosse]

Just start by draining the front dampers - and re-filling with EP 90 - takes a while to get all the air out. The difference will be very obvious. I just added a large pair of teledampers I think from the rear of a Viva - they were brand new so source a little uncertain - and they work like magic - the car rides beautifully over undulations and humps and settles immediately with no bounce at all.

[RogerRust]

where can you get anti tramp kits? Are they expensive?

[6thdude]

Rodger, I think Willie was refering to a raduis arm kit.
Have a look at an earlier string
http://www.morrisminoroc.co.uk/index.ph ... pic&t=8291
Theres a couple of pictures of Cam's JLH kit in there, very smart!

Has anyone had experience of a bolt-on kit? how is the bracket attached to the axle?

Jim

[Cam]

It uses a modified damper bracket plate and attaches there (the plate with the 4 bolt holes).

[jonathon]

A word of caution regarding negative camber. The assumption has to be made that the chassis legs are in the original position to adopt the method by BMeccosse, and the MMC Bath camber kits. In reality chassis legs are seldom paralell or vertical faced when they have been replaced. Do not simply assume that by fittinf a spacer 1/4 in or 2mm will give you an accurate setting. We have come across several cars with 2degree negative on one side and 1degree positive on the other. Check that the eyebolts both have the original washer on the outside edge of the leg. Take a camber reading with the car at laden weight and the tyres at the correct pressure, both wheels facing straight ahead. Adjust the camber by a series of horseshoe washers until the desired camber is achieved. Do not exceed 1 degree negative for road use or upto 2degree for track work. Once you have your desired camber angle, remove the washers and make up a proper shim to this thickness and refit to the eyebolt. Re check you tracking.
Tramp bars.
There are two types here, one a simple bolt on bar running below the leaf spring which limits the tendancy of tramping, A more expensive but inherently better design is the triangulated radius arm, which not only limits tramp but also locates the axle and reduces sideward movement.
I would always recommend that you should see your cars suspension as a whole and not individual components. You cannot just simply bolt on an arbitary pair of dampers just because the will fit. even if you do ,then how will this change effect the rear of the car. If you apply the same logic to the rear as to the fronts who's to say that they will compliment each other, or cause a worse situation than the one you started with. There are several professional companies selling suspension packages, some better than others, and at differing ends of the price scale. So you can make your choice from someone elses research and development. Just research the market fully and seek advice from those here on the messageboard.

[craigy]

Research completed.

As long as I don't put it in a ditch before December......the car is booked in to a place you may have heard of before, to have some structural work done and then:

Coil overs (I hope if not adjust teles) at the front (I've removed the arb and it can stay off)
+
Turretted rear + triangulated radius arms

And you never know perhaps even some lovely Saab seats ;-)

C

[jonathon]

Dohh!!!!!
It was the 'Y' that threw me, nod nod wink wink( no I have not been drinking) yet!!!

[bmcecosse]

I agree with Jonathon (for once !) on the neg camber thing - indeed it needs checking and setting - in fact one side of mine has the spacer plus a washer - the other side just the spacer. You also need to make sure the T bolt is still adequately secured in the chassis leg - with the nut fully on the thread ! You can measure the negative with the car on a flat surface and using a level gauge held vertically against the wheel. Of course it doesn't tell you exactly what the setting is - but it certainly confirms they are both the same ! The negative should be 'just' discernible when you look from the front - and NOT like the F1 cars which are running between 3 and 5 degrees on the front wheels !

[Cam]

You can tell quite easily if you need negative camber by looking at the outside edge of your front tyres! (assuming of course that the rest of the geometry is set correctly). If you have scrubbed the outer down more than the inner then for your driving style give it a bit of negative. Personally I have never bothered with this. Don't forget though with neg camber that when you are driving straight and not powering around corners that the inner section of your tyre will wear more than the outer! If you drive hard(ish) it will probably even out, but unless you are driving like a loony most of the time (or trackday driving) I doubt there's much advantage at all.

[jonathon]

Cam so long as you keep camber down to 1 degree or less you will be suprised at the difference, even on a standard car, driving normally.
As has been stated before on this forum, the front end geometry is often overlooked by most , but the gains of a correctly set up car are great indeed.

[Cam]

It'd odd that Morris did not set it 'right' from the factory then, as I'm sure they would have benifited from a better handling reputation for virtually no cost. Maybe there were other reasons not to set it like that?

Mind you, I bet if you checked the majority of cars out there now (Minors) their geometry is probably all over the place! Especially if they have had replacement chassis legs etc.

[jonathon]

Yep! thats exactly my point .

[rayofleamington]

Mind you, I bet if you checked the majority of cars out there now (Minors) their geometry is probably all over the place!

<avoids a direct comment about a certain deceased white traveller>
Yes!

My 54 is certainly not the same condition it left the factory!!
The reshaped bumpers are a bit of a give away, the witness mark on the bulkhead is more worrying and the interesting shape of the near side lower suspension arm was rather a surprise!
With a new set of bumpers 95% of people would be none the wiser - the other 5% may notice the bulkhead wibble, and anyone who strips and rebuilds it in future may notice the 'shorter' boot floor / rear quarter
The 'redesigned' right hand front wing (from last weekend) probably didn't do much damage in comparison but may well have upset the tracking (not that it was neccessarily ok anyway )

Ah well - I have started to drive the car 'enthusiastically' to see what gives and it is very well behaved so far
A new set of suspension bushes all round plus some decent 145 probably helps a lot to make it soooooo lovely

[Matt]

<avoids a direct comment about a certain deceased white traveller>

Well it hasn't quite died, its main structural bits are still all together but only just.....

oh, and I was going to make some comment about that!

[rayofleamington]

Well it hasn't quite died, its main structural bits are still all together but only just.....

In which case - I just found I am in need of Bonnet hinges too! ;-)
(my bonnet is mainly held on by gravity)
Hopefully later bonnet hinges will fit a series II.