1970 Morris Minor Traveller

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Bought a Gunsons Gastester Professional at the weekend from an autojumble for the princely sum of £10!



Decided to test the Traveller's exhaust emission yesterday. It came in at 3.4% CO, which is about right for a 1275cc A-series. It's also returning 40 mpg with ease, so it runs good, as they say

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

I did a p-ex on a set of standard Minor wheels in exchange for a rare set of LP917 8cwt Morris Minor 4.5J van wheels which are subtly wider than standard Minor rims, with 165 X 14" radial tyres so put them on the Traveller;

[madmog]

I was reading through your thread and just spotted something that might be of use:



Top left there's a spare bolt in your chassis rail. If it's still there and starts bouncing around at least you won't think it's the gearbox about to fail.

Nice projects btw

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Thanks, madmog. Yes, I had fortunately noticed it prior to replacing the gearbox cover!

[moggyman]

You Have PM

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Hi moggyman, PM replied to.

Thanks!

This weekend, I replaced the troublesome Weber 34ADF54/250 carburettor with an almost identical, but simpler 34ADF15/250 one, from a Fiat 131 Mirafiori Racing.

These don't have the inlet-manifold vacuum operated 'anti-stall/power' valve, which I think may have been causing the flat spots; what it does is to squirt in a bit more fuel when it senses low vacuum - trouble is, it may do it at the wrong time, flooding the engine!


It's up and running nicely, with easier starting and good driveability.

[moggyman]

Apparently a few people have had good results with the 32/36 DGAV Weber, having a slight power gain and improved economy when only running on the primary choke.

[joejoelowlow]

loving these, twin cam must give it some boogie

[volvo740]

Lovely motors mate...I've never seen these about? I take it they aren't keep at yours otherwise I would've seen them..

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Hi Andy,
Yes, I use both on an alternate basis locally. Currently, the twin cam is garaged awaiting an MOT which expired today, so it's just the Traveller in use - it was parked right opposite where you parked your camper!!!

Hope the veggy oil is to your satisfaction and you get a good few miles out of it...

Cheers,
Maurice.

[volvo740]

Was it? I must've been in a complete day dream. I'm like a magpie when it comes to old cars. So are they the only 2 cars you have? Thanks for the oil, will do the job

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Yes, I've just been running these two Minors for some time now - had the long-suffering Traveller in use on and off for 22 years!

Free road tax FTW! Good to hear that the oil will be put to good use.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Took the green twin-cam saloon for its MOT last week. It had covered just over 2,000 miles since last year, and sailed through the test!

I decided to treat it and my butt-cheeks to some new rubber seat diaphragms to replace the manky old elastic straps as originally fitted:



Before:


After:


What an improvement in overall ride comfort! Well worth the £30 outlay. ;D

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Today, I braved the cold and fitted a fuel return hose from the carb to the fuel tank (as per original Fiat 131 spec), as the previous owner had just fitted a feed to the carb but this caused flooding of the float chamber and backfiring:



Quite a simple installation, requiring 4m of 6mm fuel hose. It was gratifying to start her up and see the fuel squirting its way back into the fuel tank.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Well, the return fuel hose certainly seems to help with the running of the car, with none of the previous backfiring at certain speeds that afflicted it before, I believe, due to flooding of the carb float chamber.

Today, I fixed the barely working fuel gauge - previously, it would only register up to 1/4 full, and it was quite tricky to judge when it was about to run out of juice!

[minor2000]

Hi there,
I'm Ed, new to this forum, just joined today. I found your thread because I am thinking of buying one of those rubber seat diaphragms, and I was searching around to see if anybody had got one and if they were OK. Can I ask you a few questions:
- Did you get them from ESM?
- Is the area where the hooks go into the rubber reinforced with metal - looks like it might be?
- Also - bit of a long shot - do you know the distances between the frame edges of a Minor seat? I've actually got different seats in mine nowadays, but the rubber diaphragm in one of them has split, and it looks very similar to these ones that you have got.


I read the rest of your thread with interest. I also have a Fiat Twin Cam in my Minor Pick-Up - I'll add a thread a bit later.

[Pid363!]

with regard to the rubber seat diaphragm's you can also get them for Austin a60s if the minor ones are no use. NTG in Ipswitch sell them.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Hi minor2000/Ed,

Yes, I did buy them from ESM. They are just thick rubber where the metal hook goes into them, as far as I can tell. They take quite a bit of stretching to get them on, so appear to be pretty tough.

My Minor seats have seat base frames that measure 18" (front to back) X 18" (across the sides) where the hooks go into.

HTH,

[minor2000]

Thanks for that info Maurice.
My seat frame has the same dimensions, so I've just ordered one of these from ESM, hopefully it will fit OK.
Ed.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Noticed a mysterious clunk from the nearside front suspension on the green saloon when traversing the rutted tracks they call 'roads' around these here parts.

So today, I stripped both sides of the front suspension to investigate. Started with the offside ones - not too bad:




Nevertheless, out with the old rubber bushes and in with new Poly bushes:



Ooh, as an added bonus, they're colour-coded to the car's bodywork! ;D

Then I made a rather shocking discovery as I found the nearside eyebolt bushes worn right through, so the fulcrum pin was up against the eyebolt with metal-to-metal contact, hence the knocking. I've only put about 5,000 miles on it since buying the car, and it would probably have been fitted by the previous owner with new bushes, so I'm not sure why they wore so quickly:




Fortunately, this was caught in the nick of time before any appreciable wear had taken place. A good opportunity to poly-bush both eyebolts to make it more durable.

Comparison between old rubber and new poly bushes: