Morris Minor Ratrod

[mercrocker]

Spend once, spend hard, then run 'em on a shoestring......

[Eddie Honda]

Spend once, spend hard, then run 'em on a shoestring......

Spend once, spend hard, then carry on spending hard....

That's what Tommy says about the Jaaag

[panhard65]

I am shit at making money on cars as I just keep pouring in the cash. The Dodge has taken far more than I will ever get back for it, but you only spend it once and once it has gone you don't suddenly think "oh shit where did that grand go". I make a note of costs per car but tend to stop adding to it once it is about 20% over the value of the car.Stupidly I make a note of the ones I make a profit on and put them through my books but the losers just get ignored. I hate to think how rich I would of been if I had left fucking old cars alone. On the other hand I have had some fun and owned a hell of a lot of cars, some good mostly bad though.

[mercrocker]

Agree with Panhard....I have plenty of other things to spend/waste money on but every time me and the missus have a good yarn about things we've done there is generally an old motor involved. The Focus is just for shopping and allows me to be stupid on the small amount of spare cash I have these days.

[paulplom]

Same here. I reckon I could've bought a house or two with what I've spent and lost on my cars over the years. I have spent thousands of hours being 'entertained' by them so pound v time it's probably been good value.

[Guest]

I have 'made money' on a few cars, but mostly lose on them. I came to the conclusion a few years ago that I would do better to hire things that I fancy for a few days rather than buy them, get bored quickly (or suffer buyer's remorse) and sell at a huge loss a few months later.

It still doesn't stop me though, I have already spent over £200 on silly bits for the Alvis and will be spending more, plus the storage for it. Still I could spend it all on drink.

Bugger, I do that as well and on other stupid stuff that has no use.

[paulplom]

Seems like perfectly reasonable behavior to me.

[SiC]

Issigonis folly.

These two bolts hold in the brake master cylinder. Problem is that they are blocked by the torsion bar used for the suspension.

After a lot of prying on one of the bolt heads, I managed to get it bent down enough to move one. Once I did that, I stuck a socket on that bolt head to keep the bar down. Then moved the other bolt out enough.



It was easy to lever here but there wasn't quite enough movement to get it bent down enough for the head to come out. But enough to allow the shaft to.


The master cylinder was still a fight to remove. That brake pushrod was stopping it easily being removed. A lot of wiggling later it came out.


Didn't look in promising condition looking at the end. I envisioned this and already have a brand new cylinder to hand.


Stripping it down showed the bore to be buggered too.


These are all the pieces that make up the hydraulic portion. The very left piece I need remove on the new master. It holds a slight pressure on the brake circuit to stop the wheel cylinders retracting. But as it has front discs, you don't want that happening. Otherwise it'll drag the brakes leading to overheating and excessive wear.


Replacement calipers haven't arrived yet. Parcelforce was supposed to pick up the delivery from ESM yesterday but appear to only have done so today.

No matter as it gave me a chance to drain down the cooling circuit. It's now refilled with antifreeze rather than the water+flushing agent that was in there. As there is no fuel tank, I couldn't start the engine. Instead I squirted some easy start down the carb and got it running for brief periods. Hopefully enough shaking and agitation to mix the two together. Getting nearly to freezing overnight around here now.

[mercrocker]

It is a bastard to take out, however from a Nuffield point of view they reasoned that the bolts were unlikely to fall out should the nuts loosen. Workshop procedure was to remove the torsion bar. No, I don't suppose many did.....I confess to never having done the job on my car, mine was changed last year by a friendly garage.

[SiC]

I didn't think it was too bad given the reputation of it. Irritating design but I imagine the designers were well aware of it and had to do it as a compromise. If it's the other way around, the nut and thread potentially get in the way of the torsion bar. The head of that bolt is already slimmer than a normal bolt. I imagine it was a special design part for this job.

Not sure how else they could have done it to be honest. As said, the other way around must have potential for impacting the torsion bar under certain extreme load circumstances. If the master was threaded and was only held against one side of the chassis leg, it'd risk bending the chassis leg on that side over time from the load. Vertically would have had the same problem. Unless there was a bracing bracket across the top. But that complicates the design of that structure and thus cost.

Or move the master elsewhere like in anything much more modern.