Quest for improved ride quality and ride height

[canuck]

I thought I would share this with you chaps. 

During my 12 years stewardship of this car I have been fiddling about with my MK1 to achieve a more 'stable' stance when cornering. As we know in factory trim these MK1 are a tad rolly polly. 
When I first got the car it needed new tyres so I installed 'correct size' crossply tyres to the original narrow road wheels. Well to say the least replicating 1950's motoring was quite the experience.  Many a white knuckle moment in cornering.  
I then installed an anti-roll bar and FWIW this helped somewhat. I strongly recommend to anyone that drive enthusiastically to install this. 
I then bought and installed wider road wheels with 'modern' radial tyres. A mega improvement in ride comfort and cornering. The tyres have a soft side wall and feel a tad spongy but mega improvement versus the crossplies.
 
So my final foray into this improvement is the ride height.  I lowered the front a spline on the torsion bar. This dropped the front almost a 1.5" Yikes . I put lowering blocks at the rear to level things out.  I fine tune adjusted the level by machining the lowering blocks. 



The result was not as I had hoped. The 1.5" lower ride height brought other issues allowed bottoming out at the bump stops and the car looked sort of 'too low'.  Anyway winter arrived and I thought I might try to address the height issue again.

During my weekly parts  searches for 'interesting' bits I came across a bit of a Holy Grail part for the Riley.   
The  lowering blocks from factory for the MK1 to MK2 & 3 ride height.  BMC official MOWOG labeled Brand New in original packaging. 



Quite incredible these sort of parts are still out there. 

So my project now moves on to removing my 'too tall' lowering blocks at the rear, installing these factory correct ones and fine tuning the front torsion bar per specification outlined in the factory literature.



I sourced new rear bump stops that I will trim down as required. 

I will let you know how this works out as I work through this . 

salut

Bruce

[kiwimc]

Hi Bruce,

I havn't done the anti-roll bar mod yet, but otherwise my car is as you describe.  I used the lowering blocks from a Series III parts car.  It surprises me that the ones all the Minor spares lot do are 1.25" or even 1.5"!   Why don't they sell 0.5" (like the OE) and let buyers choose how many to stack?

John

[canuck]

John,

BMC never imported series 3 cars to Canada so I have never seen this factory lowering block. I asked for information once or twice on the old RMC forum but never received a response. 

You ask a very valid question. These lowering blocks I used and modified are to fit a MG Midget according to the package.  They are 1.5" to begin with and I machined off 1/2" already, and cut the U-Bolts for length,  Yikes!!  

I am more confident I will now be able to sort the ride height and improve the road manners . I may opt for stiffer sidewall tyres as well.  

For the rear bump stop, were you able to use the series 3 bump stop as well as the lowering block? or did you simply lop 1/2" off  of the series 1 stop?  




This will achieve the same result I should think?

Salut

Bruce

[kiwimc]

What is the parts number from your MOWOG package?

The U-bolts for Series I/II are long enough to still work with the 1/2" spacers and didn't change.  I swapped the rear bump stops with the Series III ones which luckily weren't rotten.  Your cut-off lines look exactly right - cross-fingers the rubber density is the same in the middle freshly exposed bit...

Can't remember what I did with bump stops on the front, but I notice I have one stop longer than the other.  I think that is still to rectify.    On the list of jobs now...

J

[canuck]

Hello John.

The MOWOG spacers I found on eBay came as just spacers, no U Bolts included.

The aftermarket 1.5" tall lowering blocks came with the U Bolts I show in my post and are mega long. After I machined off the 1/2" to bring the blocks to 1" tall I simply loped off the extra threads length of the U Bolts.

When I get around to fitting these correct 1/2" MOWOG spacers I will simply visit my friendly spring shop to have correct size/length U Bolts . 

The bump stop I show is  brand new from ESM spares. Hopefully as you say these are solid rubber and not a 'bubble'.  Cutting into it will reveal all.  

B