Extract from a maintenance manual...
Every 250 Miles
Inspect oil level in crankcase and refill if necessary.
Every 500 Miles
Attach grease gun to the following grease nipples and give pump three or four strokes. These nipples are situated: two on the steering tie-rods; four on the steering swivel-pins.
Test tyre pressures.
Top up radiator.
Every 1,000 Miles
Oil door-lock bolts and hinges, also bonnet lock.
Examine oil level in gearbox and rear axle and replenish if necessary.
Apply grease gun to two nipples on the propeller shaft.
Examine fluid level in the hydraulic brake-gear supply tank and replenish if necessary?the tank should never be allowed to be less than half-full of fluid nor closer than \ in. to the bottom of the filler opening?using only genuine Lockheed brake fluid.
Top up battery with distilled water.
Add oil to carburetter dashpot.
Every 3,000 Miles
Drain engine and refill with fresh oil.
Give distributor rotating cam a slight smear of engine oil or grease.
Remove distributor rotor and add a few drops of thin machine oil in opening. Clean and re-oil air cleaner. Add a few drops of thin engine oil to opening round distributor rotating arm.
Check dynamo-belt tension and adjust if necessary. Smear contact-breaker rocker-arm pivot with engine oil or grease.
Add two drops of oil in hole at the end of the dynamo rear
bearing.
Clean fuel-pump contact points.
Clean contact-breaker points.
Examine the gaps of the sparking-plugs and make sure that they are not too wide; for example, they should be 0-018-0-022 in. in the case of the Morris Minor Series MM. The correct gaps for various models are given in the Data Table on pages no and 111.
Change round road wheels to promote even tyre wear.
Younger readers may have difficulties with "carburettor", "distributor " and "dynamo".
If you're curious I can post what happens next, 6,000 miles.
John
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I well remember doing all these things on my first two or three cars. The great thing was, that if you did do them, the parts lasted the life of the car. Of course, cars of the 60's and 70's would probably be flat out at 75mph, and not many of them did the high mileages done today.
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would probably be flat out at 75mph, and not many of them did the high mileages done today.
Bought my first car in 1970 - a Ford Anglia 105e. Then, if a car had 50k on the clock it was considered clapped out! Don't seem to hear that description so much today --- or is it still widely used?
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Sounds like the servicing regime for my 1966 Triumph Vitesse, although I am sure there some 500 and 1500 mile operations to do...
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"Then, if a car had 50k on the clock it was considered clapped out!"
Every 25k or less the head came off for a decoke. 50, 60k it was a big end rebuild (grind the crankshaft, oversize shells)- the top end was rebuilt at decoke time, possibly with a cylinder rebore and oversize rings.
Seen the heads off my old mans cars more times than he took me to the pictures.
80 - 100k was about the time you ran out of oversize components, and a recon engine was required. The fabmous "gold seal" engines.
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Quite similar to the maintenance schedule I have lying around, for an Austin A35.
Thankfully we've seen the end of this kind of maintenance.
(I'm 19 and I knew what all of those three highlighted parts were. Well, that?s what you learn from reading practical classics.....)
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I can imagine Adam would quite enjoy greasing his nipples!
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OK, grease guns and dash pot oil are good for a laugh. But shouldn't we still be doing the fluid checks (and a lighting walkround).
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OK, grease guns and dash pot oil are good for a laugh. But shouldn't we still be doing the fluid checks (and a lighting walkround).
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If you are a new Morgan owner, you will still require a grease gun to be used at frequent intervals!
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A friend of mine told me if you didn't grease the wheel bearings on a Morris Ital, the wheels had a tendency to fall off. That was still being sold in the 80s wasn't it?
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Sounds similar to what I had to do to my 1956 Phase 1 Standard Vanguard ~ except it had 30 grease nipples!
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L\'escargot.
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Dodefarm,
Trunnions is the word you are looking for.
I'd a similar late Morris Marina - hell on wheels.
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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I run a few older cars and the mechanicals now seem to last well. I suspect that when these cars were current, the fuels and oils weren't as good as now, hence the de-coking and early wear.
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The Ital - what a car. Was a slightly tarted up Marina but alas most of the faults were carried over. Eventually bowed out in 1984 when the Montego arrived, although the Ital estate carried on a bit longer until the Montego estate was launched.
I had the privilege of driving an Ital in the late 1980's, that awful 4 speed box was so stiff you almost needed two hands to change gear. Bodywork was quite sturdy though.
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Blimey, how things have changed. My dad, for example, cleans his car every 3000 miles and relies on the oil level being checked at the annual service. ;-)
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Change oil every 3,000 miles?
I'm sorry but I disagree. My 1946 Rover 16 required an oil change every 1,000 miles. What's an oil filter?
And what were grease nipples? (It had a Luvax Bijur automatic chassis lubrication system with oil from a reservoir fed via copper pipes and an engine vacuum driven pump to all balljoints, spring shackles etc.)
My 1929 Riley 9 Monaco had a cupro nickel radiator (real radiator not a shell) which had to be polished evry week or it went dull.
And the magneto overcharged the battery over 30mph so had to be switched off.
The modern motorist driving a Morris Minor does not know how easy things are.
Change oil at 20,000 mile intervals? Pah.
How times have changed! I still have a Castrol lubrication chart for my Rover ...which I sold 30 years ago...
madf
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I drove a Morris Ital once - it was nearly new and was on loan from a BL dealer. The hydraulic clutch release failed during the weekend we had it.
The Ital was the nearest thing to a British Moskvitch, quality wise, - maybe that was down to Red Robbo.
Cheers, SS
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Glaikit Wee Scunner: Trunnions! That was it! They sound like something from the pen of Patrick O'Brian. AMazing that they were still in cars in the 80s. My friend explained their function many times but I am still a bit vague about it. You can crack a lot of people up with a word like that.
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Trunnions
As I understand it, the Marinatal inherited its trunnion based front suspension from the Morris Minor, cos it would have cost BL too much to develop an alternative. Given the technology was obsolete even when the Minor was young its no wonder it was troublesome later on.
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Trunnions
The essential triangular bit in meccano.
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Trunnions As I understand it, the Marinatal inherited its trunnion based front suspension from the Morris Minor.
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Read aaall aboutit.
37 steps to heaven
www.morrisminoroc.co.uk/technicaltips/Trunions.html
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