: In article , : Conor wrote: : > > > I don't believe *anything* is as easy to work on as a Minor, and I'm : > > > damn sure no FWD is. : > > : > > Brake Master Cylinder. : > > : > I was genuinely concerned when I saw where they'd put it. : : Common enough with bottom pivot pedals.
It's just the business of taking off the torsion bar to get the bolts out which is a tad boring. Well, that's the official method, of course...
I had to do the master cylinder on a Morris MO recently. Dead easy.
Ian
: is it reasonable to expect a : semi/fully restored Traveller to last another 20 years?
Definitely not. Even a brand new one could not have been expected to last anything like that long, and unless you buy one on which absolutely everything has been replaced lots of it will already be down the road to disintegration. If you keep it in a heated garage and only use it occasionally then you'll be OK, but as a regular driver it will deteriorate and will need regular repair, sometime major.
Still more fun than something modern, though.
Ian
: Gordon ( snipped-for-privacy@gbpcomputing.co.uk.invalid) gurgled happily, sounding : much like they were saying : : : > My question is, given good care and attention, (ie waxoiling chassis : > every year and patching up the underseal etc etc) is it reasonable to : > expect a semi/fully restored Traveller to last another 20 years? : : It's lasted this long, with less careful protection...
Except that it has needed full restoration ...
Ian
Probably depends where you are when it fails.
Ian Johnston ( snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
OK, so restore it again in another 30 years...
: Ian Johnston ( snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com) gurgled happily, sounding much : like they were saying : : : >: It's lasted this long, with less careful protection... : : > Except that it has needed full restoration ... : : OK, so restore it again in another 30 years...
Not possible. Unless "restoration" means "replacing everything" then there /will/ be parts of the car now which are worse than they were when it was built. Twenty years the first time, ten the next, five after that ...
Not that I'm knocking the daily use of classics (DS and 2CV currently on the go, Rebel as backup, Herald nearing completion) but I think it's unrealistic to expect a "restored" car to last anything like as long as a new one.
Ian
Moggys were looking long in the tooth when they stopped making them in
1971, a good design back in the fifties they were nothing special by the sixties. If you want to be different then why not buy a Green Goddess? There are several hundred for sale from about £2,000. They're already 50 years old, many with only a few thousand miles on the clock, no problems with rust, so, so easy to work on, and plenty of room for a dog too, oh and no MOT or tax needed either. I beleive there are 600 tons of spares too. Steve the grease
yes, and 10 miles to the gallon! Good for pressure washing the patio though.....
(Fireman's strike 1978 - I /was/ that soldier......)
R L driver realised it was Fri, 19 May 2006
19:44:08 +0100 and decided it was time to write:
Can have some rot though, as most of the body is wood.
If it didn't, the dog could walk alongside, as top speed is only about
50Mph.
No MOT or tax is good, since they have 5 Litre petrol engines, which do like to drink a lot of precious liquid.
Very reassuring.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Ian Dalziel saying something like:
Avenger beats just about everything hands down for ease of working on. Designed that way from scratch to keep maintenance costs down for fleet buyers.
Oddly, these days that doesn't seem to be a factor in design.
Sounds like you're not very familiar with Minors. I can't think of any job on a Minor that could be regarded as anything but easy, and I speak as someone who has rebuilt one from a bare shell. I've had little to do with Avengers, but I've seen enough of them to know that of the two, the Minor has the far simpler construction. Designed nearly
20 years earlier, yet with it's torsion bar front suspension and rack and pinion steering, quite advanced in it's time. Mike.
Moggy master cyl no problem, just carefully lever the torsion bar enough to remove the bolts. Then when replacing m/cyl put the bolts back the other way round so that next time its just undoing the nuts. While you've got the floor panel off check the condition of the brake pipes hidden in the channel. I had one rust away there resulting in no brakes. It was a police panda car which caused a lot of argument. Alan
Some time since I last did one, but IIRC the bolts may need shorteng a little, as in the reversed position the bolt end may foul the torsion bar.
While you've got the
Unless it has been done already, I would advise any Minor owner to replace those particular pipes, if not all of them, with cupro nickel ones, Kunifer etc, as soon as possible. They'll last indefinitely. Unlike Bundy tubing which can rust, giving it a limited lifespan.
Don't replace them with copper pipes, as copper has it's own problems. It doesn't corrode, but copper age hardens which can lead to their cracking. Mike.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Mike G" saying something like:
Wrong.
Torsion bars, trunnions, brake master cyl.
Not at all. It's the same.
Designed nearly
For its time, yes.
What's difficult about those jobs? I've never had a problem with any of them. Torsion bars may be a bit fiddly to set up, but apart from that they're reasonably straightforward enough to remove and replace. Trunnions are a simple spanner job. I've replaced several of those. The master cyl unions and pipes can a bit fiddly to get at and replace, but the M/cyl fixing bolts can easily be removed by levering the torsion bar a little.
The Avenger bare body shell appears to be more complete. Ie, no separate rear wings, or fully removable front grill panels etc. Also I would imagine, being a later design, that the interior trim is more complicated to remove than the simple screw fixings found in the Minor. But, as I intimated earlier, I'm not very familiar with Avengers, so I'm really only guessing, based on the cars later design, and more modern appearance, and the fact that as an engineer I can't really see how a cars construction can be much more simple than that of an MM. Apart from having a more rounded shape, the MM has a lot in common with pre WW2 cars that were mainly just bolted together. Mike.
It's my wifes actually. A 948cc 1957 convertible, it's been off the road for some time now, but in the years she was using it she clocked up getting on for 200k. Including 2 european trips. Switzerland and the south of France. Both trouble free incidently. Hang on. I tell a lie. The mileometer packed up about a mile from Calais on the way home from Switzerland. Had to have it rebuilt. The mileometer is on it's third trip round at present. For all of those years it had the original half shafts, until the back axle was replaced a few years ago due to a severe rear end shunt. The car is actually a cut and shut job now, as the rear end was virtually completely replaced, with that from a donor car. Ok on a car of that age, and the fact that concealed in the side box sections are two lengths of 4" x 2" x 1/8" rectangular tubing, that cover the entire length. They were fitted long before the accident to stiffen the chassis. Scuttle shake was almost non existant after I had that done. Probably the reason why the front of the car suffered virtually no damage, after having the rear quarter of the car, including the mudguard, wheel and axle, and most of the boot, practically ripped off. I guess we'll just have to agree to differ about which car is the easiest to work on. Mike.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Mike G" saying something like:
Ah. I'm more familiar with the later 1100 ones. All that extra raging power was too much for the puny halfshafts, obviously.
It's not that I don't like them; indeed, many a happy hour was spent up to my eyes in s**te and dirt working on them, it's just that I came to appreciate more modern designs.
Ash - it's always ash, even for '30s coach built car bodies, not just BL's external woodies.
New Traveller wood kits are fairly cheap, compared to something like an MG T-series (or earlier) kit, even though they're actualy fussier to make. You can be quite slapdash for fit on framing a coachbuilt body, as the cladding goes over the timber. On a woodie you don't get much option to adjust anything. The shaping of a Moggie is much more complex than a Mini too, particularly the tumblehome.
The big problem with fixing Moggie Travellers IMHE is the terrible rust behind the wood. By the time the wood finally gets replaced, there's a strip of lace a couple of inches wide behind, owing to the trapped damp.
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