Using cast alloy front backplates and Morris minor slave cylinders, we have an access problem. Trying to get pipe access between one of the slave cylinders and the steering arm, is there a clever fitting for this?There doesn’t appear to be room for either the bleed nipple or the feed pipe, even using a banjo union.
Cheers,
Colin & Pete.
Hi Colin,
See photo. Use a grub screw and small ball bearing to seal the port next to the rear facing steering arm (Pete built it with a standard set up I seem to recall) I have used Goodrich fittings but others are available. Bleed it still uppermost.
Works very well. No issues.
On a saloon car set-up with the brake shoes as twin leading (fit other way they will be twin trailing), clearance issues mean that only 3 out of the 4 ports can be used and as stated above, a ball-bearing and a grub screw will seal up the redundant port, I also use loctite to keep it sealed up.
I used these parts from Goodrich, readily available in UNF (Morris Minor parts are a mixture of UNC & UNF) and it is simple to connect with a short bridge pipe, cunifer is better than pure copper. This allows 2 into 1, bleed nipple needs to be uppermost port for bleeding.
Bleeding the brakes is an absolute pain, the in/out both share the same drilling, one cylinder each side has the port at the lowest point and it is hard to get all the air out, I have bled the brakes with the backplates laying on top of the stub axles, so the port is uppermost, also bled with the drums off - the beehives prevent the piston being forced out.
I have yet to prime the slave cylinder, at the next strip down, I will try, just by filling the slave cylinder then re-fitting the piston, that should work pretty well.
Rears have the same design of a shared drilling for the in/out, and if mounted with the handbrake lever pointing upwards, the port is again at the bottom, better to have the lever pointing downwards so the port is uppermost.
Thanks everyone for the quick replies. We guessed there must be a simple solution, and the Goodrich set-up is pretty much what Pete reckoned we needed. I'll pass this on to Pete.
Perhaps it was not clear in my photos if you swop the steering arm over so they slope down (arms front or rear depending where your track rod is fitted) you do not need any special fittings. Terry.
When we built the Raid Austins back in 1981 our preferred choice of front wheel cylinders were side valve Morris Minors not the later OHV models. The photo shows how simple the installation was, for safety we machined our own steering arms after finding cracks in the original Arms.
Perhaps these Lockeed alloy cylinders are no longer available?
To save weight as a handbrake was not a requirement on racing, cars at the rear we used a standard bolt on Ruby backing plate with a Fiat double ended cylinder.
Tony Johns
Thats interesting to know Terry, thank you for sharing.
Would solve a lot of problems. Is this a simple swap? If so I'm surprised this isn't the known standard fix as this problem has been aired here before.
I have a big 7 axle with the track control arms re positioned to face backwards to gain the Ackermann I wanted (keyways remade) so had to find another solution. I know some say bleeding is a problem but I use a pressure unit, take time and do it 2/3 times over half an hour. No bubbles and a very short hard pedal.
Hello Paul, what is not obvious in my photo was that we used Big 7 stub axles to take advantage of the larger 5/8" king pins. The axle beam ends were bent to allow for the non vertical king pins. This is why we used ball joints on the track rod as per Big 7.
Attached is the engineering drawing for the steering arm, also another photo of my car showing more of the front axle detail.
Tony.
The lack of Ackermann steering setup on a Seven doesn't seem to make any difference a lack of caster angle or incorrect toe in does. You need 6 to 8 degrees of castor and 1/8"toe in, fitting standard steering track arms facing forward means you can use a straight track rod, it's also advisable to fit tie rods and drop links to radius arms to prevent axle twist with hydraulic brakes.
