Of course once I get the car home a great deal will change and work will be able to commence properly, though by that time all of the planning should be complete and it will just be the mechanical side of things to progress with.
I have managed to find a place that does tyres of the type I am looking for at a decent price, so I am pleased that I have located that and I have something to compare all the other tyre sellers to now. So if prices are to madly expensive I can always get them from this company I have found and then just have them and new inner tubes fitted to the rims at any tyre place which should cost less. Mind I would have to pay to get rid of the old ones as well so that is another cost factor to remember in the comparison costs. I have to additionally sort out the problem with the mysterious one side scrubbing out the inner edge of the front tyres and then once it is replaced the other side has a turn. Not sure why it is doing this it certainly is most odd I can understand one side doing it continuously, but swapping from one side to the other is a concern.
Hopefully the trunions aren’t worn out too. I have to say though that I have recently been re-reading some of my Morris Minor books and old Morris Minor Owners Club magazines and the old Morris Minor magazine “Minor Monthly”, and reading about the methods of setting up the wheel alignment on the Morrie which has brought on a very vague recollection.
When I was replacing all of the old original rubber suspension bushes etc in The Count, some years ago now, with polyurethane ones I have the very slightest of ideas that when I took the eye bolts out of the chassis legs I may have removed the spacer washers whilst thinking to myself “why the hell would you put a washer on this side of the chassis leg”. As I say I very vaguely recall that and it will be interesting to check if it is so once I go and visit the car again to start replacing all the brake parts. I am hoping that this is the case and I have simply to replace the washers and all will be good with the geometry again. It would after all be great not to scrub the inside edge out of a brand new tyre straight away, let alone at all, I think!
Oh and the tyres, well I know it is non-purest, but after so many years with antique and out of date cross-ply tyres I want new belted radials, obviously with inner tubes inside them. Perhaps the handling will be better, maybe, though lets face it the handling is great anyway, it is a Morris Minor after all, what I am hoping for though is a reduction in road noise. Let’s face it the last “new” set of cross-ply tyres I put on the car (well they are actually still on it now) was quite a long time ago and yes they were starting to get a bit thin on the tread, they were well past the mandatory replacement age of 5 years old when I actually bought then “new”.
Sadly we don’t have the European laws relating to tyre age in Australia and they are legally permitted to sell "new" tyres that could be well over 10 years old before they ever see life on a vehicle at all. The old rubber hardens and whilst they still do the job reasonably well they also transmit a heck of a lot of road noise into the cabin. So I am hoping that new tyres that are guaranteed less than 12 months old from date of manufacture, and being not cross-ply, will bring a whole new level of noise buffering as well as better grip and comfort.
We shall see I guess...
