Mysterious noises
1954 Morris Minor SII
Owned by Russ Smith
Time owned Seven months
Latest/total costs £41.34/£679.60
Latest/total mileage 111/17,817
Previously Bought rare cylinder head
Since the onset of spring the Minor has become my car of choice for nearly all local daily-driving duties. Some of that’s down to novelty value, naturally, but I love the way Minors drive and have done since I fell for my first one back in 1978. It’s all those little things – the feel through the very direct steering, the practiced flick of the gear lever before moving off – dropping it into second then straight forward into first to compensate for the lack of synchromesh – and especially the raspberry from the exhaust on the overrun. That’s always been an essential part of the Minor’s charm for me.
Of course, using an old car regularly means stepping up on the maintenance. To help with this I treated myself to a new grease gun because there are plenty of nipples that need attention every 1000 miles or so. My (very) old one had never been that magnificent at getting the grease where it needed to go so I splashed £36 on a fancy pistol-grip gun from Machine Mart. That price included the personal revelation of an optional quick-release coupler, which is so simple, clever and easy to operate that it turns what has in the past been a messy chore into a mechanical enthusiast’s delight. I actually felt a twinge of disappointment once I ran out of grease points to attend to.
The other thing about putting a fairly long-dormant car into regular use is that it will demand a degree of debugging. Most of those, like a shaken loose earth lead that silenced the car’s period radio, have been easy to sort. But one defied my attentions – an annoying low speed noise coming from the general direction of offside front wheel. It was a rough and varying squeaking sound that I would best liken to two guinea pigs fighting over a corn cob. One that would stop, or at least vary, when braking or steering.
My best guess was the brakes so I cleaned out the drum and adjusted the shoes on that side. One of them was a bit too tight, which seemed hopeful, but a test run showed no difference at all. I had felt slight play in the wheel bearings while doing the brakes so blamed those next and bought a kit from ESM Spares. It’s a fairly easy job that I’ve done before, and the grease in there was old and hard, so that probably explained everything.
No, once back out on the road I could still hear the rodents doing their thing. Still clearly from the offside front wheel. Or was it? My good lady Susan, who is of a scientific bent, suggested the phenomenon of ‘referred noise.’ I was sceptical, but it made sense to adjust the nearside front brake too anyway, so I did. And the squeaking vanished.
There’s a lesson to be learnt here, but whether it’s about the obvious answer not always being right, or simply that it’s time I got my hearing tested, is a matter for debate. At least the problem was solved, so I had time to pop out in the Minor for an afternoon’s fishing. Very quietly.