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

My question was firstly whether the larger opening in the bell housing, which provides better air circulation, could have contributed positively to reduced wear of the Centa rollers.
Now, this question has bogged down in a discussion about whether or not to properly perform a Bleazey upgrade.
This was not my question!

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Lubing the rollers makes a big difference in the way the machine works and I suspect heat cycles on those wee bolts hold the roller retainer.

Purely guessing, I would say that the improved ventilation and cooling with the larger access hole in the bellhousing would help keep the rollers in a more reasonable temperature range, no bad thing. I would also say that the silicone lubrication helps. The rollers I have seen that have broken up (my own included) look like they were torn apart rather than just worn away. Again I would guess that the silicone lubricant helps prevent this as it is difficult to tear something apart if you cannot get hold of it.

With both of these working for longer life of the Centa rollers and the fact that if it does all fail, you can replace the rollers with not too much effort...and inspect them even if it all looks good, another limiting factor to using your M3W has been resolved by the "customer development team", with extra thanks to Phil Bleazey for his innovative work on this problem.

At the moment we have some M3W's heading from the UK across Europe to Istanbul on a 4000 mile plus trip. Back in 2016 I went on my first overseas trip.....all the way to France in my 2013 M3W and felt more than a little apprehensive, with reason. I had been on several overseas trips in my other 3 wheel "kit cars" with no problems but I felt the M3W was a risk. How things have changed, mainly because of the information that has been shared on this forum. Many owners have not taken on board the advice given by some on this website but many have and now have a (fairly) reliable car that is capable of doing long trips and having a lot of fun on the way.

We were probably naive but in July 2012, we set off on the ferry to Spain with our shiny <3 month old M3W (one of the first customer ones produced) for a drive back through France ... no spares, a few spanners some gaffer tape and a Leatherman multi-tool. Despite our own personal rainstorm most of the way, we had a great time with only one stop to deal with the belt rubbing on the vestigial mud deflector & rear tyre. The bevel box was however appallingly noisy. On return, it went back for a new bevel box belt, rear tyre etc and has since had many of the improvements arising from this great forum. Now we travel with more and more spares inc Centa rollers....

Hard to know what determines roller life - when we did our (partial) Bleazey update a couple of years ago, we found the originals (fitted in ~2014 when a Centa replaced the orignal cushion drive) looked pretty well as new even with no ventilation hole at all in the bell housing. We tried the PU ones for a while but have reverted to the rubber ones with silicone grease which seem fine. Perhaps it is more than anything about driving style and type of terrain that affect the loading on the coupling...

This is not an answer on Laurens question, because I do not have the M3W for a long time.
Nevertheless I maybe have and answer how to treat the Centa-rubbers so they keep fresh and flexible.

When sailing - It was our profession for 50 years - we used always glycerine to soften all the rubbers. On a sailing vessel there is a lot of rubber which can dry out, because of the sun and salt.
Every half a year we softened f.i. the window rubbers with glycerine.

Keeping that in mind we have two sets of rubbers for the Centa.
One set we keep in a plastic bag in cloth with glycerine.
We will change the rubbers every year and take the old one out and prepare them with glycerine.

Silicon works too and spraying once in a while is a good idea as a simple maintenance job. But treating the rubbers every year and use a treated spare set will absolutely keep the rubbers fresh

I looked for articles on the web to confirm our experience.

How-to-softening-rubber
+ Oils, such as silicone or mineral oil, can help to moisturize and soften the rubber.
+ Rubber softening is the process of restoring hard rubber to its original soft and pliable state. Over time, rubber can become stiff and brittle due to exposure to heat, sunlight, and other environmental factors. This can make the rubber difficult to use and prone to cracking or breaking.
+ using WD40 on rubber can actually cause the rubber to harden and deteriorate over time. This is because WD40 is a petroleum-based product, and petroleum can be harmful to rubber.
+ Glycerine: Glycerine is a natural substance that can soften rubber. It is often used in the production of rubber products and can be applied to hard rubber to restore its flexibility.


Restore-natural-rubber-products
+ Pour some ammonia into a pot of warm water and immerse the rubber article in the water for 1 to 2 hours. This will be enough time for the ammonia to evaporate. Follow the directions on the ammonia bottle for guidelines as to how much ammonia to add to the water.
+ Restoring Rubber With Glycerine
Wash and scrub the rubber item until it is clean.
Wrap a wad of cotton in stiff wire that can serve as a handle. A bent coat hanger works well.
Heat up the rubber piece in a pot of boiling water.
Pull the rubber out of the boiling water, then dip the cotton wad into some glycerine, and wipe down the rubber item with it. Let it dry for 24 hours, then heat the rubber again and wipe it down with more glycerine.

The weekend just gone was time for the annual visual check of my drive rollers.The Bleazey conversion was done in 2018 , I took the engine only up to Phil and worked with him to do the conversion. The only diversion from his normal conversion being I insisted we lockwire the crank/Centa nut using a specially made nut.
For a while I used the Bleazey "Brown" rollers which were fine then I put back in the original Morgan rollers that the car had fitted.
I have had no issues with the rollers other than greasing them with Silicone three times a year and taking them out once a year for inspection.
Taking them out last Saturday and the last one was split exactly in two.
I had not noticed any extra rattle from the Centa so I believe it to have happened fairly recently.It was also noticeable the rollers were much harder in composition than last year. I believe that heat over a period of time and the tumbling effect inside the Centa all contribute to the rollers work hardening over time.
I believe the Bleazey conversion and hole in the bellhousing have a good effect on dissipating some of the heat from within and therefore should lengthen the roller life. However ,failure can also be attributed to how the trike is driven.
I consider myself a sympathetic driver and am quite pleased that those failed rollers have driven over 30,000 miles.
I had a chat with Phil after discovering the failure, thankfully in the workshop not on the road and have decided to give his "Green" rollers a trial.
These are now suitably greased with silicone and all is back together to my satisfaction.
Later on this week we are off to put the trike on a rolling road, Since having 569 cams and an unlocked ECU some time ago I have never felt it was giving its full potential. So I persuaded one of the best tuners in the UK to spend some time on unlocking its true potential.This was booked many months ago and should confirm my belief that all engines are best set up individually.
We shall see later this week !
Ian.

Ian, as an investor in all 3 generic 569 / unlocked ECU combinations, the KH S&S map, the G56 S&S map and the G56 Emerald Map, I’ll be really interested to see what improvements a good technician can make on a custom tune to a specific engine. I’d agree with you that any individual tune is likely to be better than a generic one, and look forward to hearing if you think it’s worth the additional expense. If you’re happy then I hope you’ll share the details so we can benefit from your initiative.

this is still on my TODO list Having retied it seems there are too many "todo's" and not enough time

I have the later USB C type S&S ECU now with the Krazy Horse Stage 2 base map, as you know maps from the earlier type ECU are not compatible with this ECU. Before my earlier unlocked ECU inexplicably expired and was replaced by S&S it had a base map that was OK, it pinked a bit at wide open throttle and over 3500rpm a bit but was fine under most conditions with reasonable fuel consumption.

After a session with Dan Sim on the rolling road at Krazy Horse he managed to increase the torque and power figures by about 10% over the base map settings and the pinking was gone, fuel consumption was a little better as well. Maybe my engine needs a lot of compensation from "standard", hopefully not as that suggests all is not well. I expect optimising for each engine does work. Even beautifully built aircraft jet engines spend some time on a test bed to be optimised before going on the wing.

I think the base maps are good but that little but extra is always there. Unfortunately Dan is no longer at Krazy Horse and I don't know of another dyno operator who can fit a M3W on their dyno and knows how to use ProTune2. My "new" ECU is OK, the base map is still there, working mostly OK. It would be nice to have a good dyno operator with ProTune2 expertise available if you want.