Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) What Did You Do To Your Morgan Today?

This is a repair completed yesterday.

My 4/4 has a Librands sports exhaust fitted (in about 1997 if I recall).

The manifold is split into two to allow the large bore to pass through the existing hole in the valance, mating with a thick flange and three bolts. These have already rattled themselves loose before; I've even heard the ping as they parted company and bounced under the car.

Frustrated by this, and after realisation that standard locknuts with a plastic ring were not going to survive the high temperatures, I located Some excellent self locking nuts called Aerotight. Together with compatible Stainless bolts all in M10, the two manifold parts should find it much harder to part company.

Note to self: Check bolt tightness after a few long runs.

Sensible solution Alexander although have found they can only be used once to provide reliable locking. All metal stover nuts work similarly and can be re-used.

Not a Librands manifold, but I got rid of the flange entirely and went with a V-Band clamp.

..
changed the piece of bent tube for a rolled end exhaust, hopefully no more skinned shins.

David Byrne

previously..[](https://www.tm-img.com/image/VkO7N)

A Panhard Rod finally made it to the top of the to-do list. The Mulfab kit consists of a square hollow section crossmember with welded endplates each with 4 holes, a tubular rod with left and right handed threaded eyes each end, a leaf spring clamp consisting of a pair of flat plates each with 4 holes and the necessary fixing bolts – 5/16” UNF and 7/16” UNF. The rod is fixed between robust spacer tubes welded to the crossmember and lower leaf spring clamp plate.

Off we go by jacking up the rear of the car and inserting large timber blocks under the chassis just forward of the rear wheels.

Marking out the drill positions on the underside of the chassis angle section rails for the 8 x 5/16” crossmember fixing bolts needs to be accurately undertaken as there is little room for error. The crossmember and chassis rails were first measured to give approximate location requirements before clamping with a pair of G clamps and finally adjusting. I used the point of a 7.5mm dia drill, hand rotated in the 8mm dia endplate holes, to mark the hole centres in the chassis rail underseal. The crossmember was removed and the drill marks were then centre popped and progressively drilled out using new cobalt bits from 2mm dia through to 8.5mm dia. Underseal was liberally applied to the freshly cut holes. Once the underseal had dried, the crossmember was bolted to the chassis rails tightening in diagonal sequence. So far, so good.

Next job was fixing the 2 plates forming the spring clamp and this is where the fun started... The location is extremely cramped and well lubricated with bike chain squirt. Getting nuts to start on the 2 outer bolts was only achieved by rotating the plates around the leaf springs. Once a start was achieved on the outer nuts it became apparent that one of the leaf springs was slightly out of vertical alignment with the remainder. This effectively prevented the inner bolts from engaging in the bottom plate holes. This was overcome by grinding a taper on each bolt and tapping the head of each nut from above. This necessitated removal of the tool tray and involved a long steel bar. A start could then be achieved on the nuts to the 2 inner bolts.



The rod was then loosely bolted to the crossmember on the offside and the car lowered to the ground to load the leaf springs. From above, a stiff wire hook was used to pick the rod from the floor. The rod was then rotated to align with the hole in the lower leaf spring clamp plate, fixing bolt inserted and a temporary 7/16” UNF locknut I happened to have loosely fitted. The car was then jacked up again to gain access beneath to tighten up all bolts and replace the temporary locknut with the supplied Nyloc nut. The crossmember bolt was lockwired for security and protective tubing pushed over the projecting bolt threads. Job done.




Was it all worth it? For me, most definitely and almost on a par with brake reaction bars for instant grin factor. The rear end now feels much more planted and predictable when making progress through bends and roundabouts. Should have been standard fitment, but that’s another story.

Great result Chris with some innovative solutions to the inevitable problems you encountered . For finding and marking the centre of existing holes I have a set of self aligning centre punches. Only used the once but worked with perfect accuracy.

Good to see your diff casing still has protective paint on it. On my car the ex factory coating was so thin surface rust started showing. Later most of the accessible axle was rust proofed and finished with black Hammerite.

The diff casing gets a good squirt and wipe with ACF-50 during the off season fettle. Along with anywhere else that looks like it might succumb to corrosion 👍

Spent most of the day "fettling" my Morgan
First order of te day was to get her up on my EZ-Lift (The hydraulic jack was used later)



Then to use my new (to me) Wanner grease gun that I picked up on E-bay - Used but fully cleaned and refurbished by the seller. Kingpins freshly lubricated.



All wheels removed and cleaned. I also dressed the tyres (both sides,

Next job was to apply a fresh coat of Lanoguard to the underside



Then lift the diff slightly to take some strain off the leaf springs to apply some lubricant (Muc Off motorcycle chain lub)

And finally apply ACF50 to the beading using a fine striping paintbrush



All ready for the Classic & Performance Car Show next weekend