Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Steering Column Spline Count

Hi

Could someone difitively confirm the spline count on a 2012 Plus 4 steering column (steering wheel hub)?

I suspect it'll either be 36 or 48?

Thanks, Dave.

Oh dear. I sense another "counting louvres" exercise.

It's an engineering question

The answer dictates which Optimill Moto-Lita steering wheel quick release hub I buy for Monty, they are offered in 36 or 48 spline versions.

Without stripping the car down and counting, my research seems to suggest I need the 36 spline model, so that would make it Optimill's part number ORP37-36.

I just thought I sense check this with the collective Talk Morgan brain before pulling the trigger.

ANYONE

Hi Dave
I am probably talking nonsense but would it be the same spline count at the other end of the shaft the one that goes into the first UJ on the engine side of the firewall.

Regards Tony

Probably Tony, but impossible to say for sure without pulling it all apart at the steering wheel end.

However, I found this on the Berrybrook Morgan website that says its a 36 spline, so I've pulled the trigger.

https://www.berrybrookmorgan.co.uk/product/moto-lita-quick-release-steering-wheel-boss/

I wanted to support a Morgan specialist and buy it from Berrybrook, but at £270.00 including the postage they sadly priced themselves out of my business, with the welcome discount from Paddock (the Land Rover parts specialist) the exact same thing was £205.00 delivered.

It's still an expensive luxury, but getting in and out of Monty with the hood up can be awkward now with my new dished wheel, I justified the purchase by telling myself £205.00 is considerably cheaper than a course of fat jabs

Apparently you can get the fat-jabs free on the NHS if you're above a certain weight ... I reckon 150 quids worth of doughnuts would have done the job of getting you there at a decent saving! 😆

Let us know how you get on with the QR boss

K

Just checked the NHS website, it turns out I'm only one doughnut away from free fat-jabs

If things cary on as they are, I might actually need a quick release dashboard

Dave, went to check in the garage to count splines then remembered I'd sold my OE steering wheel after fitting MotoLita some time ago. Checked parts book and all Morgan Classics used the same OE hub since back at least to 2006. MotoLita list these hubs to match their wheels to column splines of this era - I chose the B71J. A quick call to them would provide the info you need.

ETA: a quick search revealed 48 splines.

Thanks Richard, that's super helpful!

Obviously the best way to answer all this is to remove Monty's hub and count the splines, but that's not possible right now as I'm away from the car, hence my post here. So this morning I phoned Moto Lita, at first the woman who answered seemed reluctant to help, she said they always advise their customers to count the splines.

However, when I gave her the Moto Lita part number B71J and suggested she would likely have a spec sheet on her system that would confirm how many splines this hub had, she agreed and looked it up. The answer as you have already kindly confirmed is the Moto Lita hub B71J has 48 splines.

I actually have a B71 NB on Monty, but both the B71J and B71 NB come up as being suitable for a post 2007 Morgan when you search the Moto Lita website.



So it now seems highly likely Monty's hub has 48 splines, the only potential curve ball being Monty has a Mulfab front wishbone conversion that uses a 2.7 turns lock to lock Mk1/2 Ford Escort rack, and I don't know if Mulfab used the standard Morgan column or not? However, I suspect the column is what came with the car when it was built as they clearly reused the 48 spline Moto Lita B71 NB hub.

I'm now as convinved as I can be that I've bought the wrong Optimill quick release hub, I will now phone Paddock and get them to change my order from the 36 spline version to 48 splines.

Many thanks for your help Richard, I believe you've saved me from some considerable frustration

I've just received an email from Paddock Spares confirming they've changed my order from 36 spline to the 48-spline version of the Optimill Quick Release hub, thanks again Richard

For anyone looking for a compact quick release Moto Lita compatible steering wheel solution for their post December 2007 Morgan, the Optimill part number is: ORP37-48

The reason for my purchase was I'd recently bought a thick rim 13" Moto Lita steering wheel that’s dished rather than flat like Monty's original. Despite being 1" smaller in diameter which is helpful in itself, because the new wheel is dished it now sits a bit closer to me which makes the reach to the stalks a little further away, it also means ingress and egress is a bit tighter than I'd like, especially when Monty's roof is up.

I love the benefits of the slightly smaller 13” thick rim wheel, it gives me faster steering response, more room above my thighs, and is much nicer in the hand too so the thick rimmed 13” wheel stays for all these reasons. The solution to the downsides is of course a shorter hub, Moto Lita do offer one (part number B71J) as shown below, but I discovered I could go one better for more or less the same money.



Rather than fitting the above B71J at a cost of £202.80 including free postage, I discovered could buy the following Optimill ORP37-48 quick release hub from Paddock Spares for £204.24 including shipping, to achieve this price I just needed to use their discount code WELCOME5.



As we can see it comes in a black anodised finish not bare aluminium like the Moto Lita version, but I'm actually fine with that. However, before committing to the Optimill QR hub I did have a friend measure up his one on his Defender, this confirmed it would indeed bring Monty's new dished wheel right back to where the flat one was.

For a meagre amount more than the Moto Lita short hub I get one that achieves the exact same wheel repositioning objective as B71J, but also adds the very useful additional feature of an entirely removable steering wheel that will give me even easier ingress and egress, and a nice security feature too. In theory, the Optimill ORP37-48 quick release hub should be the perfect 'best of all worlds' partner to my excellent thick rimmed 13" Moto Lita dished wheel.

And for just £1.44 more, that all seems like an absolute no-brainer to me