Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Bevel box

Hi has anybody a old Bevel box for spares or repairs. Morgan no longer offer a refurbed until only new! and will not have any until at least August !!!!!

About a month ago there were no exchange Bevel Boxes and only one new item showing on stock, that was at Krazy Horse. The price was in the region of £2500! Some years ago an exchange BB was just under £500 and then it could be just as noisy as the one that came off, as happened with my warranty changed BB's.

My BB is very noisy and has been for the 25,000 miles it has been fitted. I would like to have a go at changing that with a better set up next Winter but trying to identify and source any of the internals, other than bearings and seals, is impossible. Quaife will not release any information, even for a discontinued part, they just direct you to Morgan.......who don't have any stock and don't supply any parts for the Bevel Box.

It’s getting time „Professor Bleazey“ is going to have a look on this item.

I believe with just a bit of design work, the Honda GL1800 final drive unit could be converted to work in a M3W.

Here's a parts break down of the internal of the Honda final drive. Part 11 is the main internal coupling sleeve for the stub drive shaft that sticks out of the final drive in the next picture. I believe that a front end housing with a roller bearing like used in the Centa flywheel shaft assembly, different size of course, and shaft with a male spline could be provided with a front bolt on flange to duplicate the M3W drive shaft rear u-joint rear flange. Of course some exact measurements could confirm the swap.



Here's the Honda final drive separated from the swing arm of the GL1800. I happen to have this final drive AND a complete swing arm assembly with the final drive, drive shaft and the caliper/rotor. These are a very compact unit and they are OOOHHHH so quiet in use, nothing like the M3W BB. How nice would it be to NOT have the whine from the BB while you're trying to relax and chill a bit???



The reason I even suggest this is that the Honda GL1800 has been so highly converted to a trike that these rear ends are a dime a dozen, well almost. I paid $99 including shipping for my complete rear swing arm assembly with caliper and rotor. If one did this right, you could use the existing rotor/caliper on the GL1800 final drive and get rid of the drum assembly in the rear wheel of the M3W. This would reduce the weight of the rear wheel by a considerable amount AND be more efficient in the process.

Here's the GL1800 complete swing arm assembly. These things rarely go bad. They also carry quite a load on the Gold Wing and should be more than adequate for the M3W. The ACE #10 is running a Harley 120" R motor without any issues on the GL1800 final drive that Peter used on the ACE. This is what I got for $99 a few years ago. On the final drive alone, I paid just $60 with a drive shaft.





With the brake rotor and caliper mounted solidly to the final drive system, the sprocket would be made to center on the inside hub and then be bolted on with the five standard wheel lug nuts. How much simpler could it be. As you can see from the four bolts that hold the final drive to the swing arm, just a simple 90 degree bracket could be made up to sandwich between the final drive and the newly designed front bearing housing. Not a slam dunk out of the gate, but like I said, a bit of design work could net quite a nice BB for the M3W. The GL1800 from '02 thru somewhere around '16 are all the same. I can be corrected on the exact years, but these things are dirt cheap as take off units. You can see on my swing arm rotor, there were just a few miles put on it, just enough for the pre-delivery and then it was sent to the swap shop for a conversion to a trike. Back when I bought this, the guy had four for sale all at the same price.

I just looked on eBay for GL1800 final drives and they're all over the place and range from around $125 on up. One guy has over 20 of them and they are listed as under 40k miles for $120 each, without rotor and caliper. I found rotors for $100 on up and calipers for around $65. So even if you got a final drive without the brake system, it would be minor to add the rotor and caliper.

So who's going to bite the bullet and do some design work to get one up and functional???

I just thought I would toss this out as a "possibility" only, food for thought...

Great post Dan, very informative (as always) and some possibilities if things become "difficult" with spares, or you want a nice quiet bevel box. I spoke to the manufacturer of a Triumph Rocket III trike conversion a few years ago and he was very keen to find a way of using those rear swing arms in the M3W....he did have a stack of them at his workshop though.

Interesting ideas Dan, this sort of stuff will become necessary going forward as parts supply drys up.
As you say, it would be great if there was room to fit the Honda final drive with the brake rotor installed so that you could dump the drum brake from the wheel with all the benefits that would bring.
Probably have to be chain drive so that the gearing could be more easily altered I guess.

Talking of bevel boxes, does anyone happen to have a new or good condition front sprocket that they might want to part with? Either that or know the specification if it's an off the shelf sprocket from another application.
Thanks

I will have one soon , as I do the Bleazey chain drive upgrade in a couple of weeks

I suggest a call to Phil Bleazey Calum as he has done several chain conversions and maybe not all the customers wanted the old sprockets back?

Phil makes a point of handing the parts back to people (as is completely right!) So he doesn't have one.

Nippymog, if you are happy to part with the sprocket I'd be delighted to take it off your hands and sort out the required beer tokens. I'm not quite cut off from the Internet stuck on the SSCV Thialf for the next couple of weeks so communication is tricky and can be a bit slow.
Cheers
Calum