Sounds of silence 1954 Morris Minor SII
Owned by Russ Smith
Time owned 18 months
Latest/total miles 45/18,254
Latest/total costs £744/£1872.58
Previously Fitted (noisy) Midget diff
Last issue I dealt with the (far more complex than it ought to be) replacement of my Minor’s 4.55:1-ratio diff ’ with a 3.9:1 MG Midget one bought from an MG specialist. My hope was for a higher, more relaxed, quiet cruising speed. The reality was that it screamed its head off at a volume that increased exponentially with speed due to wear in the crownwheel and pinion that hadn’t been evident to my untrained eyes.
It was despatched to BMC transmission specialist Hardy Engineering in Leatherhead, Surrey. Bill Mcdonough was swiftly on the phone to confirm its knackered-ness, and with some options. They could rebuild my unit or, for the same price, send me an already built exchange unit right away. An easy choice. I hadn’t formed a bond with the old one.
While the courier was finding his way to our remote Cambridgeshire outpost,
I ordered another set of axle gaskets from ESM along with a set of nice repro clutch and brake pedal rubbers I’d decided to treat the car to. The old ones had gone hard and started to crack. That was all of a 30-second job.
With all the practice I’ve had recently, fitting the new diff’ didn’t take a great deal longer than that, though those Nyloc-equipped propshaft bolts are always a pain to do because lack of space around them means working a tweak at a time with a pair of open-ended spanners.
Now to find out if I had achieved my goal. My previous test run was swiftly curtailed but had been long enough to establish that the ratio felt right and the 1098cc engine was happy to pull it. This time I was able to venture further, on to a quiet stretch of dual carriageway that used to be the A14. The big shock was to discover what a difference a diff’ makes. I’ve owned 10 Minors, with a variety of ratios, and have grown to accept a certain amount of transmission noise. In this one, with the gearbox rebuilt by the last owner and its new diff,’ that noise is all but gone. So not only does the new ratio raise my cruising speed from a strained 62mph to a 68mph level that the engine sounds much happier with, but cabin noise levels are much lower. I didn’t even have to turn the radio up from its pottering-around volume setting.
It seemed only appropriate then to pose the Minor by what must surely be Britain’s most daftly redundant road signs (unless you know better, of course). On the edge of the village of Oakington these national speed limit indicators announce the end of a 30mph zone – just 20 feet before a pair of ‘motor vehicles prohibited’ signs, and all of another 20 yards before the end of the road. Yet someone in the Highways Department clearly thought they were a good idea.
Back in the real world, getting to this point has been rather more costly than expected – more than £1000 – but I’d say the transformation is actually worth it. Long journeys and main roads had been daunting before. I’d happily take the Minor anywhere now.