1970 Morris Minor Traveller

[waveman1500]

I'm very surprised at the difference that the seat diaphragms made!

Did you use any grease or lubricant on the poly bushes? Be aware that these like to squeak.

Keep up the good work in running old Minors every day. Nice find on the wheels too!

[minor2000]

A few weeks ago I got round to ordering (from ESM) and fitting the new seat diaphragm:


and seat back in the car:


Much better!

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

This weekend, I converted the front Marina car hubs to new old stock Marina 10cwt van hubs with 4.5" PCD to match that of the MGB back axle.

Also fitted new wheel bearings - the ones in the old hubs were well past their best, so this should make for smoother running.

This enables me to fit a set of 14" KN Minator minilite-style alloy wheels. Remarkably, despite 185-width tyres, no spacers are needed on the front wheels to clear the kingpins!











I hope these wide low-profile tyres will improve the handling somewhat compared to the spindly standard Minor rims up front...

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

I stripped down the Weber 34ADF15/250 carb and cleaned it with carb cleaner; it had some cr@p clogging up a hole in one of the secondary choke air passages but was otherwise OK. I also carried out a little judicious bending of the Marina throttle pedal to enable full throttle butterfly opening to be achieved on both chokes because previously with the pedal floored, only the primary barrel butterfly would open about half way!

It's now noticeably more rapid. However, on its initial test drive, when I went to give it some beans, it suddenly spluttered and died on me and wouldn't restart. By chance, I happened to spot that one of the oil cooler stainless braided hoses was suspiciously close to the + terminal of the ignition coil. I'm guessing that as the engine flexed on its mounts, the hose brushed up against the terminal, shorting out the ignition, and blowing the fuse to the coil, hence it wouldn't restart.

One replacement 15A fuse later and with the hose relocated, I was up and running again.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

I took the Traveller's steering column apart today to try to cure a very annoying sqeak as the steering wheel is turned.

I discovered that the horn/indicator tell-tale lamp slip ring brush (little copper/brass rectangular thing) is worn almost right down.

I reassembled the steering column, liberally oiling the felt bushes that it rotates in, and carefully set the indicator self-cancelling mechanism, etc.

I think the squeaking may have been because I only had 2 of the 3 fixing screws securing the bakelite indicator switch surround in place, so putting in a third aligned it so it didn't rub against the column.

Anyway, a test drive has revealed that the sqeak and slight stiffness has gone, so that's good news.

I also replaced a blown bulb in the extra gauges behind the steering wheel, so all glow nicely at night now.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Well, today to investigate the saloon's fuelling problem further, I removed the fuel gauge sender to have a peek inside the petrol tank. Quite clean inside, just minor surface rusting above the half-way mark, as I rarely fill it up beyond that!

Checked the locking petrol cap, and it ventilates OK.

As an experiment, I removed the aftermarket inline fuel filter between the fuel pump and carb inlet, and replaced with a section of plain rubber fuel hose.

And, what a difference! It now pulls nice and strongly throughout the rev range, with no hint of flat spots nor the kangarooing going up hills or along fast roads at speed.

I can only assume that the fuel filter was causing some sort of turbulence or restriction in the fuel flow under certain conditions.

The Weber carb inlet has its own built-in filter, so I'll just have to rely on that to keep the debris out.

It goes to show, be wary of aftermarket additions, they can seriously hinder the performance.

To monitor the engine's new-found performance, I have fitted a Micronta combined digital clock/rev-counter/headlights on warning unit. Temporarily hot-glued in at the moment, but it does the job, and verified that the engine is capable of 6,000 rpm! ;D

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Took the Traveller for its MOT a couple of weeks ago. It failed on a few items - ineffective rear brakes (common problem with this car) and a split steering rack gaiter. So, a new gaiter and offside rear slave cylinder later and it passed the retest.

[75nut]

Great news on mot, and glad to hear the simple fix on the fueling. But to prove it we need some clips of a twin cam popping and spitting on overrun!

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

The bootlid seal on the saloon, a glued-on length of foam rubber inside the bootlid, was proving to be lousy at sealing, so each time it rained I ended up with a lake of water in the low recesses of the boot. Plus, it was peeling off on the corners.

So, today, I removed it and instead fitted a door-type seal into the bootlid aperture recess:






It fits nice and snug against the bootlid lip, so I'm hoping it may stand a chance of keeping water out of the boot. We shall see...

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Heavy downpours this week have confirmed that the new bootlid seal does a pretty good job at keeping most of the water out of the boot; whereas previously, I would have had a lake in there by now, there's only been very slight water ingress, which isn't bad. With a bit of fettling, I may be able to make it water-tight...

[waveman1500]

That doesn't look right at all mate! Were the side edges of the bootlid sitting that high before? I understand that it's an old car, but it would probably help if you could get the sides a bit closer to the body, especially on the right.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

The bootlid was always a bit proud of the body - I think it got a bit warped out of shape when a repair section was let into the bottom. It will do for the time being...

The Traveller's driver's seat was looking really tatty, so I bought some new covers at a good price from someone on the Minor Owner's Club forum and fitted them, along with a Clarion stereo that was kicking about, which has such niceties as News and Traffic Programme functions.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

I have spruced up the Traveller a bit, refinishing the wood using 3 coats of Sikkens Masterstroke microporous wood stain/varnish, and stripping the wheels back to bare metal and getting them resprayed in silver-grey:

[ChasR]

The Minors are looking great I must say. The Seat diaphragms make quite a difference to your butt eh? It really took away from the driving experience when my Stag had a collapsed diaphragm.

The silver wheels (even if they are not technically the correct colour) seem to work well with the car.

Regarding the bushes, it seems suppliers dish out the cheapest rubbish they can get away with on most cars. I noticed this quite a bit on the MGB despite only having covered a 1000 miles in the car over a number of years. I put it down to the customers wanting the cheapest priced products (who doesn't?) in addition to suppliers knowing that most classic car owners will barely exceed more than 2,000 miles in the space of a year. From my MGB having new rubber bushes, almost all of them would go to being Superflex bushes (with strangely, increased ride comfort and better road manners :S).

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Thanks, Chas. Indeed, the new seat diaphragms make a great improvement - well worth the money.

So far, I've only used poly bushes on the eyebolts, mainly because they're such a mission to replace, involving having to dismantle most of the front suspension, so it's nice to have a 'fit and forget' set of bushes in place there.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

I decided that the interior light on the Traveller wasn't much cop in the dark, so replaced the original festoon filament bulb with a new white LED version, which makes quite an improvement in the light level:




Also installed an Osram white LED quick-release 'Dot-It' lamp in the glovebox lid, in the event of needing a flashlight:


Some people always have to go overboard with such things though:

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Coming home in the dark on Monday evening in the Traveller, I rounded a bend at around 30-40 mph, to see a medium-sized black dog standing side-on to me in the middle of the road, invisible until I was about 10 feet away from it! I braked as much as I could, but sadly, couldn't avoid hitting it.

It survived, and went into the hedge over the other side of the road, so I parked up and went back to take a look for it with a torch, but couldn't find it anywhere - the proverbial ghost dog!

Came back to the car, to see that it had left an imprint in the front grille, and to see all the coolant flooding out - had to dash home quick before it overheated.





The next day, I whipped the damaged radiator out and took it to a local radiator specialist, Transrad, who fixed the leak and pressure-tested it for a reasonable price (less than half the cost of a new one), so I had it back the following day. While the rad was out, I also fitted a new water pump - the old one had been on there for 18.5 years, and I had to use a club hammer and cold chisel to get the thing off!

Also pulled out the grille using a tow rope - it doesn't look too bad, considering, though I will replace it and the grille surround panel eventually...

Rad refitted, a couple of litres of anti-freeze in and all is well again.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

The Traveller's brake lights stopped working last week - the original pressure switch had failed after 42.5 years! Fortunately, I was able to source a new replacement from a local motor factors, duly fitted it and brake lights are now working again.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

I fitted a Smiths water temperature gauge to the twin-cam saloon, to keep an eye on the engine temperature. I hooked it up to the standard Fiat cylinder head temperature sensor, and it currently only reads just over the 'C' mark in day-to-day running. I may try and re-calibrate the gauge, or try and fit a sensor off an A-series engine to get the gauge into the central portion, but it does at least let me know that it's not overheating.

I took the Traveller for its MOT, and it failed on a few small issues, one being that the rear tubeless tyres were fitted with inner tubes, which is apparently not permitted (something to do with them deflating quickly if punctured), so I had to have them removed and tubeless valves fitted.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

The Traveller rolled over the 150,000-mile mark yesterday, so I took a quick snap of the odometer;



It's done very well to make it this far.