Scrubworks

Give MED engineering a ring. They do their own cams and have a road cam that should be good for your needs. I was going to put one in my 1032cc but was offered an AC Dodd cam in exchange for a cylinder head I had. Kinda wish I hadn't now but eh.

Agreed. That's the Jimny box isn't it? I'd argue, yes, for the most part. If you're fitting a mildly hot 1275, the stock gearbox just won't take it for long. You can of course pay for it to be uprated, but I'd argue that's even less sensible use of money. Failing that, swapping to a longer diff will get you most of the benefits of a 5th gear, as long as the engine has the legs to pull the car in the lower gears. I keep trying to write a long update post for the Moggy, but every time I do the car nipple-cripples me and runs off with my purse, and half of what I've written is irrelevant. Should be able to nail it down in the next few days .

I spent a fair few hundred more than that building my 1032cc engine. It's surprising how parts and getting engineering work done adds up, and that was doing all the actual building myself. As others have been saying, a 5-speed box is essential for highway work. They're also able to handle much more power, and you get a synchro on first. You may also want to look into changing the diff ratio. I don't know what ratio A40s came with, but Moggy diffs for 1961 were 4.55/1, way too short. The later 1093 cars had 4.22/1, which is much better, though still rather frantic for highway work. Plenty of people swap to the 3.9 spridget diff, which taxes a stock 1098 a bit but is a must for highways if you don't have a 5-speed. A 5-speed box, 3.9 diff, AND a tuned up engine will transform the car at higher speeds, though 3.9 diffs are now, predictably, rare and command a premium. There is also a 3.7 spridget diff, but that may not be suited to your car. It'd be great on the motorway, but would kill your acceleration. As for gearboxes, the only gearbox conversion that's really available is the type 9. There used to be a kit made by the Aussies that uses the gearbox from a Toyota AE86, but both the gearboxes and the kits are now impossible to find. There were noises a few years ago about people using Mazda RX-8 gearboxes for some conversions, because they're cheaply available, small, and give you 6 gears! Never seen one in person though. You could go down the road of making a custom backplate for the engine, then basically use whatever gearbox will fit. MX-5 mk1/2 gearbox would be an obvious choice, then have an MX-5 flywheel drilled to suit your crank. If you don't find a Midget engine, the holy grail for Moggy enthusiasts is the Morris Ital 1275. It's the only A+ series engine that was made in a RWD configuration. Tricky to find, but they do crop up now and then. Another option is converting a Mini/Metro 1275 A+ to RWD. That requires drilling and tapping some extra holes in the back of the block. MED engineering has a video on Youtube explaining how they do it. It's extra expense and probably would require the engine to be disassembled completely, but it's an option. Marina engines can still be had, though the main issue with them from a performance perspective is they use a different style of crankshaft and conrods. The Spridget engines have stronger cranks, and can use Cooper S conrods, which can be bought as modern H-beam items. Much stronger.

I have the exact same chart for Minors. Well, I don't have the physical chart. Someone was selling one on eBay, and they'd taken a lovely, high resolution photo of it for the listing. Everything was perfectly legible so I just saved the image to my computer 😂.

Leyland Moggy Manual says EP90 GL-4. 80w90 is also suitable if straight 90 isn't available.

https://www.morrisminorspares.com/rear-suspension-axle-propshaft-c87/rear-axle-propshaft-rear-suspension-c88/halfshaft-competition-pair-p831319 You're welcome

South African model. Always wanted to import one, probably not a diesel though. Also this one clearly has had some fuckery go on as it's on a Q plate. No reason you wouldn't be able to register one of these with an age-appropriate plate after passing a UK MOT.

Valve stem seals. Won't be piston rings. So many times people have said to me that their engine is burning oil so they suspect piston rings, but it always turns out to be stem seals. I think this is down to Americans filling their internet with their ever infallible opinions. In America you can easily do hundreds of thousands of miles in a relatively small number of years and yes, then you may commonly find engines with galactic mileage and worn rings as a result. In the UK it's much more common instead for a car to sit unused for months, if not years, leaving the head dry of oil and causing the stem seals to perish.

I had the same issue with my shite Daihatsu. My solution was to wedge a pry bar in between the gearbox and the back of the CV joint, then boot the end of the pry bar. Just make sure the driveshaft doesn't clock you when it flies out.

About 9 years ago I had a barn find Humber Sceptre mk3, same car as this just a bit spruced up with quad headlights and a vinyl roof. It had a twin carb engine, but I don't think it was a Holbay. Had an alloy head though. Bought it for £400, sat it in my garage for two years, then moved it on for £500. Kinda wish I'd got it running before getting rid of it.

Bringing the shock paddles to this thread. Facebook reminded me that, 7 years ago today, I bought this Metro: This car had lived one of the most luxuriously stress-free lives of possibly any Metro. It had full service history, and had only covered 19000 miles. It had also spent virtually every minute of being undriven living indoors. To top it all off, the previous owner had just treated it to two NOS front wings, along with a proper, professional full respray. The price for this unicorn? £1500 via eBay auction. Utter steal. I have to say, for all its faults, the Metro nailed its design brief. It was more spacious and better-riding than a Mini, and handled just as well. I am 6ft 5, and so driving Minis for me has always been a slightly cramped experience. In the Metro I definitely had enough space, and the hydragas was very smooth on our lumpy roads. It was, dare I say it, quite comfortable. It was also more than able to bully fat heavy modern hatchbacks on roundabouts and on city streets. It also achieved stonkingly good fuel economy, as advertised. To top it off, someone in the 80s had fitted it with a Pioneer tape deck, and some high quality parcel shelf speakers, which still sounded very good, even by modern Pioneer standards. So why don't I still have it? Well, after running through a full tank of fuel, its years of sitting caught up with it, and the subsequent fiil-up dislodged a load of junk that had accumulated from years of old petrol sitting in the tank. This led to it contaminating any fuel that was put into it. It wasn't enough to prevent the car from starting, but it would not run on more than 2 cylinders, and would jump and bog all over the place. I tried rebuilding the whole ignition system and rebuilding the carb before figuring out what the real problem was. Running the car with the fuel pump connected to a jerry can of fresh fuel solved the running issues. The solution would have been to drop the tank, and have it professionally cleaned out. In a Mini, removing the tank is a 15 minute procedure. In a Metro, you have to drop the rear subframe to get it out; not a huge job in the grand scheme of things, but by this point it had been months of the car not working properly for seemingly no reason, and I was sick of it. I sold it at a £700 loss to a Mini restorer, who then did what I should have been bothered to do, got it running and then sold it on to a collector, who did such silly things as replacing the steering wheel with an HLS one (even though this is a basic L model with the Efficiency engine), and replacing the Pioneer stereo with an original, no doubt very shit Austin-Rover one. Every now and then it gets papped by someone on the road and gets posted to a classic car spotted page on Facebook. It then gets forwarded to me by my friends, who recieve torrents of expletives in response. An utter turnip-brain move of mine.

Just put up a post for the Demio thread, planning to get back to the Moggy fairly soon before I waste the whole summer doing something else.

Yes you're right, Big End Barrels fill out the entire dish, not just the centre like those do. Been years since I've seen any.

The immortal phrase of project cars: “I really thought it would be done by now” I have made some progress on the Demio, just not as much as I'd like. In doing the surgery on the thing, I've discovered just how many layers of steel a (relatively) modern car is built from, especially at this corner of the body. I've counted not fewer than five layers of metal that are sandwiched together in this corner. I'm much more used to dealing with older, Cold War era stuff that is made out of fewer, thicker layers. The annoying thing about this is that the inner layers are often inaccessible, unless you were to cut away perfectly good metal above them. Since I'm just trying to make this thing solid, and not do a concourse restoration, I'm just working around it where possible, even if the welding ends up looking a bit messy. All actual rot is being cut out and properly replaced though. I've completely cut back the chassis box section all around the mount for the rear axle on the driver's side, and rebuilt it using 2mm steel plate. It'll last another 50 years now at least. The welding is rather ugly, but far more solid than the factory spot welds. It's taken so damn long because of procrastination, genuine other things to do, and the fact that motivating myself to cut and grind and weld on my back is difficult. It's probably my least favourite thing to do on a car that is not on a ramp. This picture also doesn't do justice to the sheer amount of rot that had to be removed and replaced. Compare with this earlier photo: Virtually everything you see here below the floor has been cut out and replaced. Like many rot issues, the full extent is always more than you can initially see. I removed the axle mounting bracket for some good rust treatment too. Also, looking at these pictures now I've realised I need to weld the little tab for the brake line back on. Fortunately, I can now turn my attention to rebuilding the rear sill and wheelarch section, which can be done sat on a mat, so will be much easier. I'm going to use 1.5mm steel to rebuild these parts; much thicker than stock but far easier to form into shape than 2mm. I've already rewelded two of the inner sill strengtheners, one behind the other. Since I've had to drop the axle to do this repair, it seemed silly not to replace the two axle bushings at £15 a side. I nearly destroyed my cheap Chinese bushing removal/installation kit trying to get the old one out, so I burned the rubber out with a small portable blowtorch. This left the outer bushing shell in the hole, which I sawed a cut into with a hacksaw blade, and then knocked out with a cold chisel. The new bushing was then squeezed in with the kit. So, here's a look at the rear chassis rail on the other side: Yeah, even more fucked. Oh, and because the fuel tank is offset to the passenger side to allow room on the driver's side for the exhaust, I'm going to have to drop the tank before I do any work on the passenger side. Fun. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. As I was poking around today with the metal near the rear chassis rail where it goes under the boot, I saw daylight from underneath. Fuck. This then quickly led to this: Sigh. Easy to fix though, I can do this part standing up! Positively luxurious.

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