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

Surprised brazing with maybe bronze rod is not used here Arwyn, which must be stronger surely. I'm thinking of front suspension supports fitted to ends of cross tubes. Would be interested on your thoughts.

I unfortunately have neither garage nor pavement but I decided that life is short and I wasn't going to let that deter me from owning a Morgan! That said, I am trying to find a way to elevate the front of the car in order to grease the kingpins (I'm 2000 km in since they were last greased when I bought the car and feeling rather bad about that...) and I'm not confident that those hydraulic jacks and axel stand setups are safe on a dirt surface.

Does anyone have experience with those individual wheel ramp things (where you put a ramp in front of each wheel and drive up on it to get a bit of a lift)? Do the work with a Morgan? Grateful to hear if anyone has gotten those to work.

Good point but my logic behind it is three fold.

I) Bronze filler rod requires a great deal more heat than silver solder and I was worried about too much heat affecting the lugs. Saw this issue first hand when a pair of Velocette Webb front forks failed shortly after being retubed- my metallurgist pal recons the cast lugs got too hot during the brazing process.

2) With the capillary action of silver solder in a well fitted and pinned joint, I can be certain that the silver solder has flowed through the joint. I've done test pieces using braze and its clear that the braze has not flowed through the joint.

3) With less heat required, there was practically no distortion on removing the chassis from the jig!

Also, with silver solder, I was able to preheat the tube and lug with propane then switch to oxy-propane to do the job. Brazing would probably need oxy acetylene to get the heat up.

Cheers

Arwyn

I have them for my Roadster. Drive up the ramps, then you can slide a trolley jack under the car. Be sure to use chocs behind the rear wheels, and axle stands for safety.

As you wish to avoid jacks and axle stands, I guess you were thinking of the metal ramps that go much higher than those shown above by Peter. Personally, I think those high ones are very risky. I had some long ago and found that they would sometimes slip forwards as you approached. Also, it’s not easy to know when you have gone up far enough before toppling off the ends!
Best solution for you is to fit a remote greasing kit, then you can grease from under the bonnet. Available from Cain at Wolf Performance for around £80 to do tops and bottoms. Note, to actually fit the kit you will still need to get the front of the car up off the ground.

Thanks Arwyn. I recall when I had my Venom that some of the steel lugs were factory soft soldered on - think that was on front forks. Very surprised but led to believe as long as the joint surface area was large enough there would be adequate strength. At the other end of the heat scale though I recall bicycle frame lugs being brazed on - take your point about distortion though.

Adam, since you only need to raise front end for greasing an inch or two and wheels can be left on, it just requires lifting whole front end with jack under centre of lower cross tube. A length of wood to spread load helps here. Yes you may have to lie on your back to get gun onto lower grease nipples but found that ok with help of an old blanket - until I bought a lift that is

You should cultivate a friendship with a local old farmer who has a pit in his barn! .... I have angled grease nipples and by shimming them with copper washers on fitting I got them to point where just putting the wheels on lock gave easy access.

K

Peter/Doug/Richard/Image, many thanks for this guidance.

I think I am safe in saying that for the non-mechanical new Morgan owner the single greatest concern is this whole greasing thing! It is both not entirely obvious or easy to do and at the same time something that needs to be done frequently.

I have seen the GoMog piece (https://www.gomog.com/allmorgan9.html) and read DaveW's book, as well as a number of generous posts on TM. But while of course helpful, words alone not as much use to the rank beginner -- perhaps some day some generous and technically-minded soul will post a how-to video on YouTube :-).

Peter and Doug, thank you for the tips on the ramps, and Doug I will be reaching out to Cain approximately immediately!

Richard, is the point about raising just a couple of inches that it is enough to turn the wheels for access, and that's all you need to do? If you don't have to literally crawl under the car for greasing, then maybe the danger aspect of just having it on a trolly jack during the greasing procedure is acceptable (don't expect you to answer this -- risk is up to everyone!).

Are there any views on using of an extension hose for the grease gun? It feels intuitively that it would be easier to locate that onto the nipples easier than the whole gun?

Image, I will start a charm offensive with the local farmer community right away .

Thanks again for the invaluable guidance!

Also, if I may, and with apologies for so many questions, should this "multi-purpose" grease work? (It's "what they had" in the only local auto parts place) -- note that the image is distorted for some reason, but the tube is in fact that standard size: