Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Centa rubbers

Many of us (probably all) have the Centa as coupling between the engine and the gearbox.
Sometimes you read and hear stories about the rubbers falling apart.
This is why quite a few change their Centa to the Blaezey upgrade which makes the change of rubbers much easier and can be done without taking the engine out.
The Bleazey upgrade comes with different rubber material and different size which would last longer compared to the original rubbers.
But some change back to the original rubbers instead of the Bleazey rubbers for smoothness.
Now my big question is: Are the original Centa rubbers really so unreliable?
We did on both our cars +20.000km with them and they still looked ok.
What is the experience of others with these original Centa rubbers ? How many miles/km did you do with them problem-free?

My Centa rubbers were still fine after 24000 miles which is when I did the Bleazey upgrade on my old car, and they are still OK on my new car after 7500 miles which also has the Bleazey upgrade. I think their life does somewhat depend on how you drive the car though. The failed MMC ones I have seen seem to start to fail around the middle where there is a moulding line from their manufacture, Phils do not have this moulding line. I have only ever used the MMC Centa rubbers.

Mine started coming apart early, maybe 25000 miles? There was a slight vibration that encouraged me to look into the bellhousing hole with a bore scope and what I saw was no chunks.

This photo was taken at 4700 miles when I pulled the engine to do the Bleazey mod.



Only one roller had come apart but not completely.



I found after installing the Bleazey roller that the clutch take up is different and more positive. After driving 500 miles on the Bleazey rollers the clutch take up seemed to be a bit more bouncy so I shot some lube into the roller pockets and the take up is smooth again.

This allowed me to inject lube into the center of the roller pockets without having to remove anything.

My first M3W did 27,000 miles on the first Centa rollers which still looked virtually new. I only replaced them as I was having the clutchplate replaced after a spring broke. The second set were still going strong 8,500 miles later.

For the new one I went for the Bleazey upgrade at 7,000 miles just for peace of mind going forward. Since changing I started with the Bleazey rollers for about 1,000 miles then switched back to Centa. I didn't find much difference so, after talking to Phil, I've gone back to the Bleazey rollers and kept the Centa as spares.

Changed mine at 1700 miles, only because the engine had to come out to change a rear crank seal, fair bit a wear though but cheap to replace. Having said that mine was a prototype car so mileage could be whatever, who knows?

Like many, we changed ours when doing the Bleazey upgrade (what a great piece of work with super support fom Phil). We had no way to find out condition as our v early 2012 car had no access hole at all in the bell housing so the upgrade turned out to be for peace of mind more than anything. After around 10k miles, the rubber inserts showed no real signs of damage (nor did the clutch). We originally had the Centa put in at the factory to replace the original v1 coupling when the chasis was changed....

I changed to the Centa at about 8.000 km and made the Bleazey upgrade at m3wService in South France with 26.000 km and one of the rubbers was broken in small pieces

Achim alis Waldemar

I had this question asked when I started this topic as one of our cars got a loose nut on the crankshaft inside the Centa. 
We’ve found out by a rattling noise during driving and during idle. After taking the engine out, I discovered that the big nut was loose on the crankshaft, which give play between the crankshaft and the hub. This play did damage the splines.
The Centa rattles from left to right on the splines of the crankshaft.

As both our cars have a Phil Bleazey upgrade, Phil offered me an undersized hub for the Centa, which I installed.
This undersized hub fitted perfect at assembly, so I used that undersized hub and torqued the big nut to the advised specifications from Phil which is nearly 50% more as MMC advised.
The engine sounded all back to normal again.

But it left me with a big question: Did I make the first installation not correct? Or was the fit between the crankshaft and the hub not right? Was the big nut not tight enough torqued? Or was there another reason that the nut came loose?

From some of you, I know you’re driving with the Bleazey upgrade and using the original rubber rollers.
But these original rubbers are easily prone to breaking up.
The Bleazey rubber rollers are much stiffer or harder (depending on how you call it) and (probably) don’t break as easily.
I used the Bleazey rubbers on both cars till the nut came loose.

As the Bleazey rubbers are almost the only difference with the original Centa ( except, of course, the much easier changing of the rubber rollers when they break), I started to ask myself: “Could it be that the rollers are the reason the nut came loose”?

I investigated both different rollers.
The original has a rounder shape than the Bleazey’s; they are softer and bigger in diameter.
Could the original rollers better cope with the hammering engine in front?

As I had no proof of this, I found it wiser to return to the original rubber rollers.
Also, I’ve never heard from a loose nut with the original rollers.

After the first few meters with the original rollers, I thought the clutch felt softer when changing gears.
This is compared with the Bleazey rollers.

Don’t forget that when driving the rollers are on one side in the Centa housing pushing the car forward but when releasing the throttle the car pushes the engine and the rollers are on the other side in the Centa. This is also when shifting gears. So all the time, they move from left to right. If rubbers don’t absorb these shocks well enough, it could be in my opinion that it will undo the nut a bit of its torque. It starts with a tiny bit, but once that starts, there is no way back. The nut will get loose.

This was all in my opinion, and I wanted to find out if I was correct in my way of thinking.
But now, a few weeks later, I’m getting more and more reports from loose crankshaft nuts and all with the Bleazey rubbers.
I think it’s nessacary to put this problem on our forum as it is there for us to help and advise each other.

I hope you all understand that I don’t blame Phil for this because his solution with the Centa is ABSOLUTELY perfect.
And we all need to be thankful to him.
His solution makes it easy to change the rubbers, so we don’t have to worry if they break down.

Hi Laurens - thats an interesting theory: harder Centa inserts cause more drivetrain shock and impact the crankshaft-centa splined adapter.

Not sure we have full data to support that yet, but my recent problem was not the nut coming loose but the actual spline wearing* (nut was still tight) - however I did have Phil's inserts not the factory ones, and the spline wear on mine was after only 1000 miles after the Centa upgrade. It was my bad luck to coincidentally suffer a regulator failure it seems!

* = diagnostic on an upgraded Centa: additional noise / vibration, and when stopped, the outer Centa casing could freely rotate a few degrees back and forth to a hard stop ie rotate independent of the crankshaft it is attached to

Sorry to hear that you have had Centa problems as well Laurens, there are a few about post Bleazey Centa mod. Your theory about the rollers could be a good one. For info my M3W has done just over 10,000 miles since the Bleazey Centa was installed with no problems 🤞. I reverted back to the original rollers, rather than Phil's version, soon after the initial runs. I found Phil's rollers were rather harsh on acceleration, very "thumpy" at about 3000 rpm and full throttle. I have run with the original MMC rollers, some silicone grease every 2,000 miles or so helps smooth things out as well. I also wire locked the full size crank nut to the crank on assembly, I like positive locking.

The bonus of Phil's rollers was that there was less backlash in the transmission and Phil mentioned that the broken clutch springs he has found have all been on cars with standard Centa rollers, that may be because those are usually the ones being taken apart for conversion though? I think the spline adaptor fit is critical as any play will soon result in wear as power goes on and off, followed by the nut losing torque.

The original Centa unit has also suffered the nut coming loose, Paul Rand on his return from Grindelwald in 2019 memorably, people looked to see what all the noise was as he drove past. I seem to remember hearing of one or two others as well.

Hopefully a good fix to restore confidence will be found soon as the Bleazey Centa mod is basically very good.