Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Steering Column Play and a speed wobble

great, then another useful tip there. I've had it for 2000+ and and have been greasing only... Really to hope to solve as loving the big 8 so much on the longer drives... fixing this would really help.

How much loose play do you have in your steering. I.e when stationery does the steering wheel move a little?

Less than 1/4" on the steering wheel with someone holding onto one wheel. That's pretty tight though and 1/2" I would accept as good.

Greasing as you clearly know is the big one to do regularly, the spanner tightening becomes more important if you have rougher roads as the chassis has to work harder if that makes sense.
At the moment our local councils are short of money so we end up with +1" potholes in a lot of our roads and the Morgan suspension crashes around into them and generally loosens things up at the front end.

Unrelated to the wheel balance but a good check to do annually is to tighten up the "U" shackles holding the leaf springs on the back axle.

Glad you are enjoying the big 8, they are a very special car to drive I find too.

Alex, check the steering universal joints for play. Last year I found the lower one to have a bit of play in the clamp part, found during MOT. Very slight play only, needed a fairly strong pull to notice it. Sorted by tightening the bolt. I missed it during my pre MOT check. I had not noticed the gradual steering effect but did after tightening ( possibly my imagination though). Rechecked a couple of times since and now ok.

Just a thought to add to the advice above - are the tyres old? You could have a tyre starting to mis-shape that would also cause the issues reported.

That, and also mud on the inside of road wheels, are quite common causes of wobbles etc when cars ( non-morgan i must add) come into our workshop with wobbles/shaking issues.

My +4 did this after a service at RTCC. When I got it home I found they hadn't tightened up the bolts on the damper blades. It is easy to spot as per gomog and easy to fix.
Wheel balancing of course always helps.
Good luck

Hi all, thanks for all the great advice.

First step got up early this morning and found damper blade location. Removed, cleaned and regreased both of them. Drivers side made a click sound when I pushed it up in the centre of the blade so figured a quick clean etc will help. Is it worth replacing these?

On a side note, to me surely replacing the damper blades with a modern damper must help tremendously?

Next step I'll put a spanner round the front end.

Steering column play feels acceptable if Rich's comments are referred to...

Tirewise these are likely originals... 27000 miles... Worth a replacement you think?

Cleaning the damper blades is always a good idea, they need to be able to slide in and out but not move forwards and backwards in their slots.

If you decide to replace with new (and why not, they are very cheap) note that you'll almost certainly need to trim them back a bit to shorten them, otherwise they'll foul on the vertical chassis member.

Many people favour replacing the damper blades with a more modern telescopic damper, but to be honest I have found the original blades to work very well indeed.

Alex
Regarding the damper blades; if they have now been cleaned and lubricated (I use copper-slip) and the bolts are tight, they should be OK.
As for replacing them; your choice obviously, but I find they work effectively as long as they are maintained. I do this when I grease the kingpins, or after any wet or very dusty drive.

As for the tyres, if they are the originals, I would think that they definitely need changing.

As has been said I think I would be inclined to change the tyres as a first move just incase they are the cause, they are 21 years old and probably not very good in the traction department.
There are date coding guides for tyres on "Google" if you are unsure of the age.

The damper blades sound fine now you have cleaned and greased them, they are low mileage after all.

I find the suspension system suits me - there are alternatives but from what I've heard I would take a lot more convincing. If the front end is well maintained the steering has never seemed heavy to me.

The damper blades should be fine, but please change the tyres. At that age they are very dangerous.