Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Tread Rubbers - maintenance

Well, inspired by Dave's post I spent all day today taking 2 treads off the drivers side wing, cleaning polishing and refitting

Mine were really bumpy caused by the rust build up on the bolt heads

It was a b##### of a job ! Getting those nuts off corroded threads also gunked up through years of wax oil and bolt heads that just spun in the ali channel recess where I couldn't get any pliar grip




It left a lot of black gunk on the wing which cleaned off well and I gave the wing a good polish with Autoglyms resin polish then some wax

Also cleaned and polished the tread channel

Both back on I'm pleased to say looking nice and flat and using stainless bolts and nuts with nylon washers
Used copper grease and ACF50 to hopefully stop any moisture getting in the holes and prevent ali to steel reaction
Also used Armour All non silicone semi- Matt vinyl protectant on the treads after they were cleaned off and before I got them back in the channel - that was the easy bit

My hands are now sore but a nice sense of achievement even though I'm the only one who will notice the result

Sounds like a good job well done. Should be good for years now.

You must be made of hardy stuff up north, way too cold for me in the garage today!

It was a bit chilly - probably didn't help the hands

The football on the radio hopefully drowned out the occasional expletive

by the way

did anyone have the issue where the tread rubber became much longer than the channel when trying to put it back in after a clean?

each of mine gained two inches and I had to cut them down

bizarre

or spooky Morgan magic

It's probably down to friction when refitting (and the same friction not allowing contraction).

Try using talc powder. Works wonders to reduce friction and quite easy to clean up.

http://www.mossmotors.com/graphics/products/PDF/281-248.pdf

Here's a bulletin from Moss Motors web site pertaining to their running board treads, they list a separate part # for the mounting hardware. Part #280-058. I'm not sure if they are the correct size, can anyone confirm?

When you pull the rubber strips they tend to stretch a little and the cross sectional geometry tends to shrink (Poisson’s ratio). There is also a bit of memory effect to their recovery. However it is possible to feed the stretched length back in but you need to keep it under compression in the length direction and use some lubricant.

A point probably worth mentioning. I don’t know exactly what type of synthetic rubber the strips are made from. This may not be relevant but certain synthetic polymers do not react well when they come into contact with petroleum lubricants (Vaseline for instance). They can swell and degrade with time.

Short treads.......much shorter than Morgan.
I am trying to imagine what they look like.
They would be under the door only which seems to make sense......

or good old fashioned washing up liquid

I also re-mounted the running board channel and tread runners last year after the paintwork under the aluminium channel was blistering up around each mounting bolt on both sides of the car.
I thought it may have been galvanic action as the fixing nuts & bolts are stainless, Dave W suggested the probable cause was moisture ingress in the bolt holes under the 2E paint.
On re-fitting I made sure the oversized holes in the running boards had lots of primer added also Duralac was applied and a small round beading, ‘O’ ring of plumbers putty around each bolt was applied sealing the assembly .
I also used a strip of 1.5mm thick mounting rubber between the aluminium channel and the running board, this was a ‘Neo Strip Fixing Kit’ 15mm x 1.5mm 5mtr including Alpha Thixofix adhesive which I used to glue the strip to the aluminium, I purchased the kit from Delta Rubber.

David, 2001 4/4 4seater Avus Blue