Vintage Minor Register

I found some postings in this forum concerning king pin and it seems that it my be possible to bye a set of king pins. I have searched (google) without success. Someone out there who can help me? (Minor SV2612)

Have you tried Ian Harris. Search for Ian Harris on this forum and you will find contact details.

Thank you Simon!

Thomas,

Do you need plain pins or the ones that take the brake cable pulleys?

Ian

Ian

The king pins that can take brake cable pulleys.

Thomas

Thomas,

Here's the photo of your front brakes that you sent me:



Yes, this roughly like the original set-up. However:

1 The brake lever should be in front of the kingpin and not behind it. You can either remove the brake cam and the hinge pin from the back plate and swap them (the two bronze bushes in each backplate are identical), or you can put the left backplate on the right and the right on the left, which will be the same.

2 There should be a second pulley, in a bracket, attached to the chassis. Do you have these?

3 The cables you have are far too thick for pulley brakes, as they need to be very flexible to run around the pulleys. The original flexible front brake cables were made of wire rope and not cable, becuase wire rope is much more flexible.

I will contact Ian Harris to see what he has in stock right now and to talk about having some SV kingpins made. I need a pair myself - does anyone else need any?

It is difficult to see in this photo, but it looks like there is no alloy wedge between your front axle and your front spring? It is a vital part if you want ther steering to work!

Ian,
Interesting!
Well, I have had a feeling that someone has "tried" to put the car together without Minor knowledge - but this is what I have to work with!

1) OK, this seem rather easy to manage.

2) No, don't think so. I'll examine this - I found a picture showing the SV chassie and those are missing.

3) Dimension?

4) Yes, it would be very nice if the steering is working I will send you a better photo.

At a second thought - I'll send you some more photos of the car for your comments - if thats OK with you?

Thomas

Thomas,
Just a thought, but unless you are committed to originality why not convert your front brakes to Bowden cables? Does away with the pulleys and is an easier system to maintain. If you do want to keep the pulley system I might have some bits that came with a box of spares I bought a while ago.

Philip

Philip
Yes, it´s a solution I have in mind. Do you use some kind of "balance bar" to balance the break "power" between the wheels? Do you still use the SV-type king pins (to obtain some construction for the cable housing)?
Thomas

Thomas,
The Bowden cable uses the same operating lever from the cross-shaft, the outer casing is located to the chassis just before the site of the original pulley wheel, the other end of the casing is located by a bracket fixed to the brake backplate (two holes need drilling for this) the inner cable then attaches to the brake operating lever. The pulleys at the top of the king-pin therefore become redundant and I imagine the king pins could be replaced with the non-pulley type. I will look and see if I can find any photos of the set up, Ian Harris can supply the conversion and I would think it comes with instructions.

Philip

Hi all, if this helps I have attached a picture of the Bowden cable conversion on my OHC Minor which would have originally used the same pulley system as the SV.
I think that I possibly have the M-type conversion with the front cable bracket attached to the stub axle bolts and a triangular plate set on the chassis for the rear of the cable. My problem is about the length / support of the cables. The weight of the largely unsupported cable seems to drag on the brake lever, thus applying a small amount of braking, but I'm working in this
Martin
[attachment=1]R0040772s1.jpg[/attachment]

Slightly different to mine, my pics unfortunately only show the cable and backplate attachment in a "stripped" state but you should be able to get the idea.

Philip

Sorry my incompetence with these photos has ended up with the important bits missing, perhaps Ian can sort them.

Philip, I know what you mean about the pictures - I had to reduce mine in size and they were still too big - but I notice that yours were also in the forum thread "Bowden conversion of the Minor braking system".
Hope I'm not covering old ground, as that previous post covered most of the issues. Have you reached a conclusion and got the brakes sorted??
My cable system is quite tidy except I am not convinced I have the right routing of the cables.
Martin

Not sure whether my brakes are sorted yet as I've gone from what was supposed to be a "rolling restoration" to a full blown job. Fortunately I have managed to buy an interesting running Minor and have promised myself not to touch it apart from normal maintenance.

Philip

The 'Minor Bowdenex conversion uses an S-shaped outer sleeve. The foward end of the sleeve is anchored by a plate attachment on the top of the backplate (over the kingpin), while the aft end is anchored by a threaded fitting into the chassis about half way between the backplate and the brake cross-shaft. Martin, your arrangement looks interesting, but I have never seen anything quite like it.