Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Workshop update pre Roadster Service.

Great stuff as ever Dave.

Post Photobucket re-post

First - here is the oil filter. To the left is the filter I bought two years ago from the Jag dealer, to the right, the revised filter with amended numbers.
These are for the S1 Roadster. You should check compatibility for subsequent 3.0Litre engines. Remember that the S1 doesn't accept the Mondeo ST 220 filter.





This time I'm using Mobil Super 3000 5-30 fully synthetic which is listed for this engine. It was 20% discounted at Halfords on special offer. I bought 10L because the engine capacity (from memory) is a bit over 6L.



These are my latest acquisitions - all fine (thin) leather except for the yellow, which is quite thick.



And here is why I bought them, (not the only reason).
Here's the cowl lower edge.



Cowl upper: The Vaseline is obvious. The red patch is bigger than necessary but the tinwork here looks better fully covered than part covered. The hinge plate is covered with thin black leather. I use two thicknesses of double sided tape, depending on how much space there is.



And bonnet front corner. Here the overlapped edge means that a stepped thickness is needed, so there's a strip of neoprene to level the buffer. On this corner (and elsewhere), the paint had rubbed off.



Finally, do you have an elongated steering wheel boss as below, and does it reflect into the screen?



I made up a leather cover for my Roadster a few years ago. And there was enough left over for one more cover. The offcut came with a turned over and stitched edge.
If you would like this cover, which attaches with a strip of double sided tape, (stitched end away from steering wheel), send me a PM and you can have it! Only one available though.

This week I've managed to get a couple of hours in the garage and changed the front dampers. One of the rears has a slight leak so rather than mess about, I'm doing a refresh.

The new ones have New Elms/Rutherford stickers:



Here is a comparison, Old & New. There's a slight difference at the bottom.



And here we are - good as new. It still looks good under there at ten years old. Note that the main springs don't pick up much road dirt. The damper fasteners are UNF threads, 5/8" or 14mm spanners and a 4mm allen key for the top.

Today, 14th October I've had a morning in the garage and changed the oil & filter. I won't do a blow by blow account this time as I've recorded the process in detail before, but here are a couple of notes.

I always pre-fill the new filter so that it takes less time to build pressure. I also run the engine for a couple of minutes before draining the oil. This is simply to warm things over so that when I start it up with clean oil, it doesn't start from cold mode with high revs. Some people prefer to drain the old oil hot, but I prefer the warm oil method.



The old oil was surprisingly dark. It's been in there a year but not a great mileage, and no short trips. It wasn't quite as black as it looks here.
For the record - mileage is 17,406.
Oil is Mobil Super 3000 fully synthetic 5w-30. Sump bolt head is 15mm.



My second job this morning was to add spacers to the engine mountings to increase the ground clearance. I used two pieces of aluminium cut into a U shape which give a 4.55mm lift. I might add another 2.25mm spacer in time. It's a very simple job. Remove the lower nut - there's also a washer which may drop down. Then I screwed on an extended nut which I used to jack up the mounting using a scissor jack, then slotted in the spacer.





This is the spacer in place. The lower nut is 17mm. Sump clearance has increased from 79mm to 83.5mm (3&1/8" to 3&1/4"), not much but even a small increase is worthwhile.



That's all for today.

Here's the front propshaft U/J. Note two nipples, the second is for the sliding yoke. On the S1 Roadster these are easy to get at, but on my Plus4 this joint is behind the floorboards, and I only found a nipple on the U/J. I need to look again at the sliding yoke. These nipples only need a sparing application - one stroke max, otherwise the seals on the U/J can be unseated, and grease will get flung out - this happens a bit anyway. See lower left on this photo.



And here's the rear U/J - easy access.



This is the offside rear brake. Still looking pretty good.



And my special funnel & tube for the rear axle.



Finally the battery compartment. Note the fused conditioner umbilical, and I've added a neoprene seal to stop road dirt blowing up.



The rear axle dropped about a litre and a half of really clean oil. Until this change, what came out was discoloured but this time it looked new.

The gearbox only drops about a litre, and what came out was discoloured. The capacity (from memory) is more than that so it must hang around somewhere inside. The Getrag is a difficult fill, because immediately inside the casing is a gearwheel, which makes it tricky to locate the tube and hold it steady. I lost my touch this time because a fair dollop landed on the newspaper below. Normally I'm quite tidy with few spills............

All that's left now is to lift the spare wheel and inspect inside the cavity, which I'll do on Saturday. Followed by a shakedown run to make sure that the engine mounting changes don't cause any knocks.

Thanks for this, the spacers look like a nice idea. Does it not put strain on the propshart and gearbox mounting?

No it's such a tiny amount. I later added the third layer to the spacer. I could probably get a fourth in there but be mindful of clearance to the bonnet hinge. There's plenty of flex in the gearbox mounting, and no difference to the feel on the road. A few mm isn't much but its a critical few mm, and such an easy fix.