Vintage Minor Register

My OHC minor makes too much noise in the 1st and 2nd gears , but runs smoothly in the 3rd gear,
the workshop people suggest that the gears were very worn and they tried to repair them by some welding
when they worked on them, however I am not happy with the noise and I think I would need new gears probably
1st / reverse , second /third , counter gear and the main shaft.

I think the part no's for the same are 1126, 1127 ,1129 and 1142.

any clues as to where can I find them or any alternate measures ?

regards
Kartik

Kartik,

Third gear is straight through - one to one ratio, and so is always the quietest gear. If the others are too noisy, you'll have more chance finding a replacement box than trying to find the gears, which are not available.

If you like, I'll place a Wanted advert for you.

Ian ,

pls place a wanted ad. Are morris 8 gear parts compatible ?

Thanks
Kartik

Will do. Morris 8 gears won't be the same. That was a completely different synchromesh gearbox, and I think all Morris 8's were 4-speed.

Hi Kartik,

Will something from the MG M Type do ? If so, try Barry Walker. He seems to have an impressive parts catalog which does speak of a complete gearbox. Find the catalog here:

http://www.barrywalker.com/parts.asp

Also, I was wondering, does it take too much to have gears made ? It is quite a common problem for everyone on the register, from the actual gears to the starter motor ring ( My starter ring is quite worn out). So would it be possible for us to get together and solve it ? We have samples for both the 3 speed OHC and the 4 speed SV here in India !

Regards
Parth

Hi Parth,

Barry Walker is a good source of parts - for anyone for whom money is no object!

Re gears, the old problem with making batches of spares for Minors is that the batch needs to be larger than the number of likely orders if the price isn't going to be too high. The Register has tried for many years to co-ordinate batches of various spares, but the story is always the same - insufficient interest to enable production costs to be realistic. I'd like to see a batch of splined gearbox input shafts made - but it is not likely to happen.

Regarding your starter ring, you can get these from Mike Dowley at Sports & Vintage Motors - they are identical to the M Type ones that Mike offers. Let me know if you need contact details.

Ian

If the ring gear is only worn in one place, the usual thing is to touch up the teeth with weld and then file them to shape. This will generally last for years. The original ring gear is actually part of the flywheel, not a shrunk-on ring, so it isn't particularly hard steel. The weld metal is similar to the cast steel of the flywheel. If it is past repairing the only way is to machine it off and use a modern replacement.

A popular and effective way of making 3-speed gearbox quieter is to replace it with a 4-speed !

To correct the post on Morris eights they were all 3-speed boxes until the Series E which was equipped with a very nice 4-speed box.

Regards,

Philip

I would'nt replace the 3 speed gear box with 4 speed , so I will wait for spare gears or a complete gear box to turn up.
meanwhile I think it would be a good idea to drive the minor on shorter spells to run in the gears and to replace the gear oil,
which I think is not upto the mark.

also as Philip say that the early morris 8 gears were 3 speed , could they be compatible ?

thanks
Kartik

Interesting to be reminded that the 8 boxes were 3-speed . Surprising as the 8 replaced the Minor that had already gone 4-speed. I can't remember how many speeds my 8 had (I owned it in the seventies). It had a Wolseley 10 OHV (XPAG?) engine so probably had a non-standard 4-speed box. But I'd be surprised if the 3-speed gears in the 8 box are interchangeable with the Minor.

Kartik,
I don't think any of the Morris 8 internal gearbox parts would be compatible, the M8 gearbox was synchromesh on 2nd & top and externally looks a more robust construction. It might be possible to fit an M8 box to a minor but I have not heard of it being done, prewar a number of M8's were fitted with minor 4-speed boxes (the most notable being the Ashley Cleeve special) as it was thought a retrograde step to fit the new M8 with a 3-speed box. Having fitted a Series E box to my M8 tourer I can confirm it transforms the car from a driveability point of view especially in modern traffic conditions.
Regards,

Philip

Ian,
Your 8 with Wolseley 10 engine sounds quite interesting, the Ashley Cleve special I mentioned ended up post war with an unsupercharged XPAG engine, but still the minor box but with c.r. gears made by A.C. who was evidently a skilled engineer.
Regards,

Philip

Philip,

It certainly was a hot little number. A real student hack, but a previous owner had worked at Bristol Aircraft, as evidenced by all the aircraft grade hoses and fitting it had. You could spin the rear wheels in first and second (which leads me to think that it was indeed four-speed). It apparently had a Triumph TR3 exhaust system and various other interesting mods. I sold it in the end because the chassis kept cracking over the front springs - possibly because of the extra weight of the engine and gearbox and possibly due to abuse and general thrashing around Bristol. It had a combination of 350x19, 400x18 and 450x17 wheels, all of which had the same outside diameter, as I pointed out to the MoT tester.

Are the gearboxes same on ohc cars and early sv minors , I believe early sv cars came with 3 speed gear boxes too.

Ian Harris has just emailed me this.

" I dont know if there is any difference in the gear box casting for OHC or SV. The gears etc are all the same on the parts list
but the box itself has a different part number. There are many different drive gear combinations for the speedometer to presumably correspond to the
different back axle ratios. I'm sure you can exchange those from your existing box to this, if you wish - or vice versa."

so would it be safe to assume that the gears would be the same on both sv and ohc ?

Kartik

Kartik,

Good question - we seem to be getting a lot of good gearbox questions right now!

In haste...

I think that the 3-speed SV box is interchangeable with the OHC box - at least the later OHC box that doesn't have a transmission handbrake. Later boxes (and I think this includes the SV 3-speed boxes) have a blank boss in the alloy casting where the transmission handbrake fulcrum pin was fitted on the early boxes.
If the gears are all the same on the parts lists, then this also suggests that the boxes are interchangeable.

In your case, you should have a transmission handbrake - these ceased at chassis M29527 and your chassis is M22335. So if you wanted to fit a later box, you would - I think - only have to drill the blank boss to fit the fulcrum pin for the transmission handbrake. Or you could bypass the transmission handbrake and take it to a lever on the cross-shaft and thereby upgrade to post M29527 status.