Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Fitting Brake reaction bars

Correction:
I think that we all agree that older tyres can become a danger, however it must be pointed out that except for certain commercial and industrial vehicles, there is no mandatory tyre age limit for cars in the UK at present. Plenty of recommendations from motoring authorities but no actual mandate; only tread depth, cracking and improper inflation would cause an MOT failure.

Replaced
gmg

Thank you. Quite right, Deejay. My apologies. The only tyre age the UK government mentions, (Feb 2021) are for "HGVs", which includes buses and coaches above a gross vehicle weight of 3500 kgs) and all axles on minibuses when fitted "in single configuration". 10 years. It is grossly inadequate but then all governments are swayed by forces other than safety, regardless of what the manufacturers, experience or science dictates. https://wfirm.com/tires-expire-in-six-years/

In any event, forgetting local laws and safety, Morgans with quality, youthful rubber are infinitely more fun to drive. Why own a Morgan if it gives less joy than it can? I have driven many Morgan, all types and years, with great, mediocre or bad rubber. No contest which is the best. Sadly, tyre age deterioration is such an incremental thing (much like unattended suspension/steering maintenance), that their owners don't realize it has diminished their joy. They only recognize all that when they put on a new set of WISELY-chosen tyres. Worth every penny. Luckily for the UK, the choice and price of tyres is the best I have seen in my travels. I have made many cranky with this mania, but only until they try the best tyres for their Morgan..then they become disciples. I have seen too many moggers lose their front or rear end (those on the car ;)) on a great mogging road and then blame themselves when it is merely their tyres. We unknowingly adjust our driving fun to the inadequacies of any vehicle we drive.

As noted, I have never reached even the manufacturers' recommended swap age let alone their limit regardless of mileage (10 years). Tyres of any type begin to be less than their maximum effectiveness and comfort long before they reach any limit. I swap the out. I used to give the replaced ones to my daughter's boyfriends..the ones I did not like. I lent my daughter one of our other vehicles.

gmg

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd post an update on this.

Brake reaction bars and new tyres fitted, and the difference is significant. It now doesn't scare the hell out of me, and feels a lot more posed. I'm sure the tryes have made the most difference, but it's very noticable how the steering no longer wants to jump out of position on bumpy roads etc.

Brake reaction bars were a real pain to fit, and I needed to make a number of alterations to the tyre rubbing stops (that the tryes never even get near to). If it wasn't for the unfortuate position of the end of the bars and these stops, it would have been relatively easy. I had read several posts about this being an easy 45min job, for others considering this be warned, if like my car, it could be more like several hours and a lot of swearing

Thanks for all the advice, great forum!

Well it's not a science and there's nothing stopping you adjusting the length of the BRB's! All you need is a drill and a vice! Believe me these have been fitted at all lengths until some kind of standard fell into place when they were first manufactured by Mulfab.

You are absolutely right though when you say its not a super quick job and if you want to do it correctly and make sure everything stays in place while you are at it then yes your timings are closer to the truth, especially when you factor in the preparation and clearing up!

Glad you got them on though,, They make an extreme amount of difference to the steering and smooth out the braking too, more so when cornering and you have to brake ! Couple this with good rubber and suddenly you're driving a different car.

Is there a consensus on the best BRB's to fit on a 1970's 4/4?

I checked a few retailers and to my surprise they seem to be around £80 a pair!

If I am going to pay up, I may as well get a decent set.

Thanks.

Mulfab have the strengthening washes welded on. Lots don't seem to now and for some reason seem to have a slotted hole one end?

I like having that fitment at the oiler bolt end, I also round the flattened end corners following the radius of the washer being carful not to encroach on the weld or washer. On the chassis end I relieve the inside corner to allow the fixing to be made fairly close to the vertical chassis frame and a small radius on the outer corner to make it friendly when working on the car!

Just musing here, but since the brake reaction bars do their work in tension rather than compression, presumably one could obviate the risk of transmitting shock loads into the chassis and make it a lot easier to install and adjust them by having a cable and turnbuckle arrangement instead?

Me, I'm perfectly happy with my Mulberry setup.

The only difficult part I've ever found is re-fitting the top kingpin bolts. They seem to either just engage with kingpin threads on first attempt or require lots of jiggling. Loosening all associated fittings and centralising with a short taper drift helps. Since you don't mention I hope you did use ½" washers of suitable O/D and thickness under kingpin bolts to spread the grip onto BRB's given the plain ends, and as recommended. Your concerns of availability were unfounded BTW.

Ah Richard, in my previous posts on fitting these BRB's I have described how to prevent that misalignment occurring. Just to make a short cut here for anyone reading and wondering how, here's what you do.

The crosshead is a fixed item which means the pin is fixed also within this structure, so sliding pin used to describe the suspension system is not really correct, rather it's a sliding hub assembly. When you have the car in a position ready to start fixing the BR bars the very first thing to do is place a jack under the bottom bolt of the pin (below the rebound spring) Bring it into contact and gently jack it up until you can just see slight movement at the cross-head. You are not trying to jack the car up rather just adequately tension the pin against It's top mount. This will maintain the pin in the correct position whilst you loosen and remove the oiler bolt. Here, once I have loosened the oiler bolt half a dozen turns I then want to check that it is removeable by hand. this achieves two things firstly it shows that the pin is being held in a correct position and secondly that there is no damage or distortion to the cross-head. If the cross-head is bent its possible that the movement when an oiler bolt is removed could well cause a misalignment problem that will be difficult at best as a home mechanic to rectify. If all is good remove the the oiler bolt, fit the BRB and refit the oiler bolt at least half way. Now you can take care of the fixing at the chassis end. When satisfied with both fixings tighten them up starting with the oiler bolt. initially just sneck it up, then tighten the chassis end fully, finally return to the oiler bolt, tighten by hand only using a standard spanner. CAUTION Don't be tempted to lean on this with socket tools and breaker bars! I was once given a torque setting for this bolt but am not sure how true or from where it originated so I won't post it here however I have had a chat with Arwyn whose knowledge is phenomenal Morgan wise and he says there is actually no torque setting stated in any documentation and he suggests standard spanner by hand. The works may have a setting but probably only for speed of installation. Arwyn tells me he has had cars in with broken oiler bolts so probably overtightened and then shock fractured.