1968 Hillman Minx Estate - 08/10/21 - Road Trip!

It looked great sat on Harpenden Common last night (in the slashing rain......natch).

Thanks Phil. I'm pretty sure that Monroe do a compressor set up but I think I'll see how it goes with the little tyre one I've got for the moment. Theoretically I'll only be changing the pressure for the times when the car is fully loaded so I can probably live with doing it that way.



Cheers Mike. I had been thinking about that. The shock slides on over a biggish boss and then the screw simply keeps it in place and has no load directly on it so its a stronger assembly than the if load were being carried by the fixing bolt itself. Tops would actually be quite easy to do if need be with a separate bracket that fixes to the boot floor. Bottom would be trickier though unless I made a whole new mount and made it such that the bolt took the shear.



Ta



Glad you like it

great work mate, thats superb!

Seth,

That works then. I used to pump mine up to about 90psi, and that'd hold for a week or so (but my seals are leaky!)

That'd hold it right up in the air, any more than that and it'd kick and hopskip over bumps and generally be undriveable in the wet.

Looks smart on yours, it's fun to be able to knock all the air out and scrape up tarmac

--Phil

Well, the shocks worked a treat All loaded up and fuelling before the trip to South Wales for our Hols.



Shocks at 90psi and the rear ride height was pretty much as if it were unloaded. Drove much better too with much less "wallowyness".

A couple more holiday snaps:





There were three days we didn't drive in the thirteen we were away and we clocked up just over 1200 trouble free miles. We do like this car

Quite a while since an update! The Minx has been soldering on over the last few months. Passed its MOT in November though there were a couple of things picked up as needing attention.

The diff has always made its presence felt above about 40mph so I've been on the look out for a replacement. This week I won a pile of parts on Ebay from a chap not far away in West London, including a complete rear axle and a pair of springs. The axle is off a non-OD Hunter saloon and so has a ratio of 3.70:1. The one in the Estate is 4.22:1 so swapping would make quite a difference to cruising revs but I'm a bit worried about how the car might cope with towing the trailer tent. I obviously need to find a matching 1725 engine



Also in the pile are a pair of saloon rear springs which have only 3 leaves compared to the four of the estate. These might get some attention from the Jonny69 camber press and swapped over at some point as I can rely on the air shocks for additional rate when required


_{*Grizz trolley was found very useful!}

Nice to see some more progress Seth. One of my cars of R-R.

Thanks guys.

Kilroy, I know the car would be fine with the 3.70 diff on its own but it struggles a bit on hills with the trailer as it is. We might be towing with the Herald this year anyway in which case it won't matter but I'll make my mind up eventually.

*Must get a kayak for the roof

Rodit, yeah I'm just using a cigarette lighter compressor which has a gauge and its fine for regular use. Pump it up to 80-90 if I'm loading the car up and let it out to the min recommended 30 when its not. I' don't think the acuracy is so important as I'm not race tuning the suspension with it

This is always a deadly thread to read, with deadly but usually fairly straight thinking solutions.