Ah yes, steering. Having driven Old Rusty with the lousy original
steering, I wanted to make sure the Pop, which should see more frequent
use, should steer well, despite sticking with a conventional steering box
and a beam axle.
Here's what I ended up with, Ian Caldwell (Redoxide) donated this
early Morris Minor wheel, column and top bush to me . It was siezed, but
I managed to free it off. With this setup, the whole column rotates. The
top bush fitted under the dash ok after slight tweaking and redrilling
one of the holes. The wheel has provision for a horn button, but I dont
have one, I'll try and adapt the one from the Pop wheel. Needless to say
you cant attach an indicator stalk to this column! The wheel itself will
need some resto. The relationship between the wheel and the shifter can
be seen here.
After trying all manner of different steering boxes, I settled
on this Anglia 105E box. It is a far better design than the 100E
box I had been planning on using, and 10 times better than the stock Pop.
The Morris Minor top column allowed me to cut down and shorten the outer
shroud, giving increased clearance to the exhaust manifold stud. Actually
I used the top part of a 100E column, the Anglia one has a lot of bracketry
that would have needed trimming off. Needless to say the engine mount requires
gusseting. Next tricky job will be snaking some exhaust downpipes through
the narrow gap between the bulkhead and the engine mount.
The drag link was made up from the bottom half of the stock Pop
drag link and half of a 100E track rod, welded together with a generous
taper on the joint to give plenty of weld area.
General view of the new crossmembers added to strengthen the chassis.
New shorty exhaust system added on right hand side.
Tags added to rear of main crossmember to mount front end of rear
radius rods. Rear leg of X member has a couple of bends in it which probably
reduces the effectiveness, but something is better than nothing. Exhaust
made up from parts left over from other projects.
Closer view of the rear susp mount (some more welding required)
and the trans mount. Speedo cable just clears the new front member.
In this shot you can see the relationship between the front leg
of the x member and the front radius arm mount and the exhaust running
down and between everything.
Close up showing how the front end of legs tie in nicely
to brace the front radius rod mounts. Widening the rectangular tube was
fiddly.
Exhaust dumps in front of the right hand rear wheel. Might leave
the flange on for show, but it wouldn't be worth capping this one, it'd
seal the system! Not fitted at the mement is the rocker panel, which comes
down level with the bottom of the fender.
Back
to Pop Intro page.
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