20) Out on the road
- Chris Stanley
- Nov 17, 2019
- 3 min read
A quick couple of jobs before heading out on a club meeting.
November 17th 2019
With plans afoot for a meeting of the Wirral Classic Car Club, there were a couple of small jobs I wanted to do before heading out on the road. Firstly I've been noticing the occasional groan coming from the steering rack or column when manoeuvring. The chances are that some lubrication is badly needed, so let's get to it!
I know there's a grease/oil nipple below a small rubber plug in the passenger footwell so the first task is to locate that. Peeling back the carpet I find it straight away, prise out the plug and give the area a good wipe around with a rag.
Now the next question is whether to use oil or grease. There has been a lot of debate on that subject on the owner's club forum, some people insisting on oil and others arguing the case for grease. Well as a novice I think the best thing to do is to consult the original workshop manual (Morris, not Haynes) and the outcome of my research was... Oil! Hypoid gear oil to be exact and fortunately I still have some left over from when I refilled my differential.
Fortunately I found a small 'push type' grease gun on Amazon which was advertised as also being suitable for oil. When the tool arrived in the post, I opened it up and filled it. So far so good!
I then jacked up the front of the car to raise both front wheels off the ground. This will make it easy to turn the wheel from lock-to lock in order to distribute the oil. I started by turning the wheel fully to the right in order to slide the steering rack as far left as it would go. Then I gave a good few pumps of oil into the rack before straightening the wheel and pumping in some more. Finally I turned the wheel fully left, gave a few more squirts of oil before turning the wheel fully one way and then the other a few times to spread out the fresh oil.
To alleviate another little squeak, I dripped some 3-in-1 oil into the bearing on the steering column bracket.
The final job of the day was to grease the handbrake cables underneath the rear of the car. There are two cables that go from under the transmission tunnel and off to each rear wheel. The outer sleeving of each cable has a grease nipple in order to keep the inner cable well greased and moving freely. I suspect this has never been done, or at least not for many years! I first jacked up the rear of the car and placed axle stands under each side of the axle. Well the clue is in the name I suppose!
Then I slid myself under the car, attached my grease gun and pumped each cable full of grease until I saw it begin to ooze out of the ends.
The next picture is a little hard to make out due to the atrocious amount of filth around my rear hubs, but it shows the end of the handbrake cable at the point where it attaches to the brake backplate. You can just see the fresh grease coming out from the end of the cable sleeve in the centre of the picture.
And with that last job completed, it was time to head off to New Brighton to meet up with the other members of the Wirral Classic Car Club!
The weather wasn't wonderful but the car performed flawlessly. We drove around 41 miles in total and had a fantastic day out.
Just on my way home from the Lyceum and thought I'd pop in to HMV for a cassette of The Four Tops greatest hits to play in my Moggy at the weekend.......Oh, hang on a minute......!! Suddenly and miraculously, I'm back in 2019. I suppose I will have to make do with Acker Bilk then.
Yes, reversible modifications are a great idea. Don't get me wrong, I do like the idea of having some tunes in the car but I think I'd have to take a leaf from your book and add some sound insulation. The transmission noise above 40mph is unpleasant and above 50mph is deafening! Curse these early smooth-cased gearboxes with their low ratios. I'll have to look into that Woolies stuff if you say it does a good job.
As for your choice of tunes? I'm quite partial to a bit of 70's myself, hope you have a great time at your show. You can't beat a bit of Motown!
Chris, whilst I'm with you entirrely on the 'originality'aspect, pretty much every modification-cum-improvement I've made to my Moggy would be easily reversible by any subsequent owner. The radio cassette player will be fitted to a suitable plastic mounting mounting bracket under the passenger side glovebox and the speakers will be on the parcel shelf rather than making holes in the door or kickboard panels.
To be fair to my car, I think it's as quiet as I can make it now. I have lined the bonnet, all the floor area and as much of the passenger compartment bulkhead as I can get to, with that thick sound insulation material from Woolies. Very effective, I've got to say.
Wind noise is…
Thanks Alan. The jobs were pretty straight forward to be honest so they didn't take very long. Sometimes you get a car which seems to fight you at every turn but I've been so fortunate with this Moggy as every job I've done so far has gone beautifully. Let's hope it continues that way!
Restoring a car from a bare shell is a serious achievement and you're absolutely right to be proud of yourself. I know I should never say never but that's the kind of job I'd consider to be well beyond my talents!
My Minor has no sound system at all, I don't think it ever had one from new to be honest. I did consider fitting a…
Wow! Impressed that you did those 'little jobs' before going on the run. .........would take me probably nearly all day.
You're right about the feeling of satisfaction in completing a restoration. Long story, but about 30 years ago I reassembled an MGB roadster from a freshly resprayed rolling shell, with most of the bits arriving in 2 tea chests!! Oh, and I replaced the wiring loom as well. It still counts as one of my proudest achievements.
I'm currently waiting for some speakers to arrive before fitting a Pye radio cassette player to my Moggy. I wanted something 'period(ish)'. Aerial-wise, as I don't want to drill any holes in the bodywork, I've gone for one of those electronic jobbies an…