Today I raised up our Plus Six for its first underbody pre MOT inspection. The MOT is due in March, so i figured its a good time to take a good look around under the car starting at the front and working to the rear.

The car has only covered 2K miles ( for various reasons ) and generally its in very good condition underneath. At the front end I have not yet found anything that would impact its MOT.
However, what I have found is rust in a couple of places. The main area is the front brake hub that carries the brake discs on its outer side and the ABS ring on its inner side. On both sides of the car the hubs are heavily rusted. There does not appear to have been any coating applied at manufacture, its just raw steel. Now the rust in itself is not a hazard as such, it just looks pants.. The only slight rust concern is where the front wheel rim alloy sits close to the hub, it had built up a thick layer of rust touching the alloy. The answer was to wire brush the hub carrier, neutralize the rust and overcoat with black paint such as POR.
The next rusting areas are the front rack outer ball joints, again, it looks like there was little anti corrosion coating applied from new. Lastly some of the fasteners are startting to rust. Again a wire brush and some POR black paint will tidy it up.

So the above is just a heads up to owners if you are concerned how the running gear looks.

Once I have sorted the front end I will take a look at the rear.. I will post if I find anything.

I have booked my Plus Six in for MOT in February while still covered under its 6 month used car warranty, I will post again with the results.

Given that MoT engineers must cycle through a fair range of vehicles (and ages) it would be very interesting to ask for their comments on the brakes, feel, retardation etc. I am assuming that it has had the brake upgrade performed and so it would be good to get their feedback?

Dave, the Trads have lots of untreated parts that start to corrode, so I'm sure the CX series will be similar, I tidied up my brakes & undercarriage with some brush on high temp engine paint

Before


After

Hi Jon, yup I had to do the same on our Roadster.. Somehow though I had hoped that Morgan with a new model and price range had bothered to place something on the raw steel of the Plus Six hubs, but sadly no.. not a sausage.. I guess sometimes you just cant teach an old dog new tricks...

I think you will find that most of the parts you have highlighted, are manufactured the same way for most vehicle manufacturers and are just not treated/coated.

I remember asking at the factory during a tour when my car was in build if the stub axles were painted. The reason was seeing such on a part completed car covered in surface rust before it had even hit the road. I was assured they were although the reality was that parts of the stub axles on my car received some sprayed black underseal. During the course of 4+ years of ownership most areas of same and elsewhere have been painted in situ with black Hammerite. When kingpins are renewed next winter they will be fully painted whilst off the car. Track rod ends are another part that rarely see paint ex factory.

As suggested it's not unusual in general for such ferrous parts to be left untreated or with a minimal sprayed coating that will soon allow surface rust. Certainly not an MOT issue though.

My AMG/Brembo hubs were also rusty, it used to annoy me but I was told it was normal.

The uprated/replacement EBC discs I had fitted to the front recently had a clear coat on them and have not corroded.

Someone told me that the better discs were more iron than steel and so rusted more, so it was a good sign. I never knew if I should believe them or not?

You should!
The AP Racing discs on the Plus 8 rust, easily, as do the AMG and Porsche discs.
The Tesla discs never rusted, but then the brakes were rarely used as the regenerative braking did 99.5% of the stopping!

A bit of a ramble with a pic at the end

I`m not much into concours levels of maintenance, though there is no doubt that when nailing my old cars back together I would at least try to restore them to better than new in the out of the way areas where manufacturers coatings (if any) were to lightly applied or missed entirely causing corrosion to take hold and had caused the area affected to be in need serious attention.

In some cases before buying an old sports car I would seek out books (pre interweb) where the author had restored a vehicle of the type I might be thinking of purchasing, in the hope of discovering the less than obvious problem areas. One book I found on Trads was that by Chris Harvey "Morgan The Last Survivor" which had pics of parts of the car stripped down to best display where corrosion could take hold and the effects it could have not only affected general fit and finish, but also structural integrity..

Few manufacturers took time to build-in quality and longevity of the type a fastidious owner, or a buyer, who just wanted his car to be reliable and maintain it`s looks a bit longer, and in that regard Morgan seemed unlikely to be much different around the time I was thinking a Morgan could be the car for me..

T`was the GoMoG webmaster who put me on to the Morgan I have owned for circa 20 years, it had been been subjected to a nut and bolt restoration only having covered circa 8K miles from new and then stored for many years prior to being restored. Kevin, the restorer was a bodyshop proprietor and Morgan enthusiast who well knew the usual Morgan problem areas. Kevin stripped the +8 down to the bare chassis painting the rad, bulkhead chassis petrol tank cross-head and all other underside metalwork in two-pack lacquer, then put it all back together using stainless steel fixings where he could, in the hope that it would maintain it`s appearance for a while longer than any new Morgan leaving the MMC. Such was the quality of Kevin`s work that it won a concours trophy at the lakes weekend soon after I bought it from Kevin..

I have read of the three wheeler guys discussing paint finishes for suspension parts etc, along with this thread on parts looking rusty brown and corroding. Kevin`s careful preparation and application of two pack lacquer seems to have achieved all he might have hoped ,given all the effort put into making what was his Morgan a bit more special.

The chat on brake discs... Admittedly in the 20 years I have owned my Morgan, I have only covered circa 28k miles, however Kevin`s efforts seem to still be paying long term dividends. I thought to head out to the garage jack up the rear end and grab a pic of the under the rear wheel arch area as it is today... Even the paint on the brake drum seems to have lasted rather well, as it has on the chassis, axle and a bit of the fuel tank can also be seen. All things considered it does seem that paint protect the underside well, perhaps better than applications of goo or galv, it certainly looks a well enough all things considered and seems likely easier to clean..?

Rusting brake discs... Yup my old Mogs brake discs rust easily when not in use, however all it takes is a rub over with emery paper to clean them up and that they do not have splash guards covering access to the inner faces of the disk, makes that a much simpler process.

On other cars with splash guards on the discs it does seem that the inner faces of the discs may attract considerably more corrosion than the outer faces..? Whether or not my +8 being minus splash guards has caused the discs not to corrode more in comparison with their outer faces, I know not. ... The Evoke`s disc outer faces look very polished but the inner faces are pocketed with corrosion..and in less than 25 k miles it has required replacement rear discs due to corrosion and to have all the brake hoses and steering rack replaced as the result of a factory recall.... Morgan are not alone in having issues.

Just thought to add, the 10 year old 45k mile exhaust on my 991 is in good condition however the fixings/clamps used to hold it together are corroding badly to the extent that nuts are unrecognisable as such to the extent that replacing these corroded fixings would be no simple or inexpensive task.... and less so the fixings holding the exh manifold to the heads where apparently it is expected that some fixings will sheer when an attempt might be made to remove them, requiring the use of a specialist jig and kit to drill out the remnants.... Thus even the supposedly best quality auto engineering may not be best overall quality at times....

BTW the stainless exhaust fixings Kevin used to put the Mogs exhaust together can be unbolted with ease, including those holding the manifold to head... I did not require to remove the manifold, I just tried a couple for test purposes given I have read where stainless can bond to alloy causing issues should disassembly be a requirement..

Back to Mog... If you check out the pic, all it would take to improve the appearance would be a rub over with a rag, and a few dabs of SMOOTHRITE a Hammerite product which seems to work well for me.

Mine is the newer painted chassis 4/4 and so far I’ve managed to keep corrosion at bay. I did paint some of those bare steel parts fairly soon after purchase and that’s really helped, some of the more intricate parts i’ve periodically sprayed with aerosol waxoyl, also proven to be a good move.
I’ve not needed it on the Morgan but I’ve been using hammerite krust on our forty year old lotus, it’s a great product, lightly wire brush any loose rust hen lash this stuff on and the remaining film of rust turn black and forms a hard protective surface. Used it on my Caterham too and it’s been perfect since.

Some OE brake disc manufacturers coat them with a sort of hi temp zinc spray, it gives a nice satin grey finish that lasts quite well

https://www.ate-brakes.com/products/disc-brakes/original-ate-brake-discs/coated-brake-discs/

Hi Jon, on the Plus Six the brake disc itself does have that grey finish and it seems to have lasted quite well and protected the non braking areas.. The disk is secured to a disc carrier by a ring of nuts and bolts. The disc carrier is well finished and seems paint protected and has no sign of any corrosion. The carrier is then held to the front hub mainly by the wheel studs that pass through it and one small countersunk hex fastener which looks to be a locator. Its just the hub that is not corrosion protected. I have now done the same as you and neutralized the rust on the hubs and covered the hubs with a coat of black caliper paint. Followed by a covering of ACF-50. Hopefully now it will now just need a yearly recover of ACF-50.

I suspect the task of the countersunk fastener mentioned is to stop the drum coming off with the wheel when it is removed, as it can be the case that they stick together in some circumstances. It is often the case that these countersunk fasteners are over tightened by those who associate their importance as requiring a high degree of torque, which some time later creates issues with their removal... I ever coat the threads with copperslip and just nip them up.
If you come across any really tight ones an impact driver and 2 lb hammer can do the trick.

I cleaned off the surface rust on my front discs and painted with hammerite smooth metal paint

Stainless fasteners into an ally casting almost invariably give issues after a few years. The ally corrodes, the products of corrosion are more bulky than the metal that has corroded, and to add to that aluminium oxide is a good abrasive. Not only are the threads much tighter than they used to be but they are filled with an abrasive powder giving extra friction.

Serious heat will sometimes work to expand the ally but often doesnt. The issue can be avoided in the fist place by coating the threads with Duralac or alternatively using zinc coated fasteners.

Boats having both lots of ally and lots of stainless fasteners give endless problems. But the CX series will have bolts into ally so beware.

I have some experience of stainless fixings and the impossibility of their removal from alloy after exposure to weathering, or worse still salt water, having maintained a sail boat for a few decades....However, when I typed of Kevin`s decision to utilise SS fasteners where possible on what at the time was his +8 is relative to the effect thereof after 20+ years, although perhaps only having covered a tad under 30k miles in that time, some of which was on salted roads with snow and ice around.

Bottom line, as I typed above the stainless fixings holding the steel tubular exhaust manifold to the alloy of my +8 head, having never been disturbed since Kevin had initially rebuilt the Mog 20 years previously, unscrewed without issue, which is a world away from my expectations relative to any and all exhaust fixings on my Porsche 991.1 at 10 years old and circa 43k miles...

The nuts and bolts Kevin chose to hold on my Mogs exh flanges together were also SS, and a couple or so years back when both two into one mild steel sections of the exhaust were past their best I was grateful for Kevin`s use of SS fixings which made replacing those two sections of exhaust so much easier...Such was the condition of the fixings I removed in the task, that I was happy to reuse them.

Kevin also utilised SS fixings to mount the wings, and some time back I also decided to unscrew a few of them to ensure that their removal and replacement would be a relatively simple process which it was, and I again re-used the same fixings. I think I posted a pic of the wing fixing and the surrounding area for those seeking to make comparisons with the look/effect of SS against their own wing fixings.

There are different grades of stainless steel and it is not suitable for all tasks as Howard has wisely pointed out

I am no metallurgist and type only of my personal experience relative to my +8, in the hope it might advantage any fellow owner.

I have spent a few decades struggling with the effects of corroded fixings, thus I also well appreciate just how rewarding and time saving and FAR simpler a task can be made, if one can put a spanner to a nut or bolt and it with a degree of confidence and to find that loosens off just as it should...

Just a quick update after checking the rear wheel area. In general most areas seem fairly well painted or plated. The only exceptions being the rear hub, which is unprotected steel and surprisingly the front differential carrier which is located above and at the front of the diff. The carrier is painted, but the finish was thin enough to have a lot of rust breakthrough on it, its also made of thin gauge tubing, so worth sticking some rust neutralizer onto it. The rear hub had a lot of rust build up under the alloy wheel rim, to the extent that it took a bit of effort to get the wheel off. Once off it cleaned up ok and is now painted to stop further issues.