This week I used the Morgan to drive to Frankfurt for a business trip. Maybe not the most practical car – but then again – why not use it? Driving on the Autobahn however is not really that much fun. On the UK trip there were hardly any hills or step inclines – the A3 to Frankfurt on the other hand does have quite a few.
Vmax of C6622 in its current state with the standard 1.6l Ford CVH engine and the changed rear axle Diff of 3.x:1 is a approx 135km/h. As the 5th gear of the Ford T9 gearbox is 0.82:1 – the 88BHP of the engine are not sufficient to maintain speed uphill. In 4th gear (1:1 ratio) it is possible to reach around 115km/h uphill. The reason I wrote 3.x:1 for the Diff is that I am unsure if Billy from JD put in a 3.7:1 as discussed or a 3.3:1 (that he mentioned he had)
In the end that doesn’t matter as in both cases the engine does not have sufficient torque in my opinion. The minor diff ratio change results in a very noticeable performance change. Oh well, in lower gears this isn’t that much of a problem – so driving on in the countryside and City is not a problem – but highways and situations were you want to overtake are not that pleasant.
After the BVAC2023 trip a number of tasks found their way on my ToDo list. And with this – a minor change. In the UK we did hit a few potholes. I am certain that the front wheels suffered from the impact. The shaky suspension I had before centering the wire wheels was back to some extent at speeds between 70 to 80 km/h. The trip to Frankfurt made this clear. Switching the rear and front wheels is the only thing I could try.
While time wise the last front suspension check is just a few weeks ago – there are now almost 4000km in between. After taking the wheels off, I started with cleaning the underside of the front wings, suspension and chassis. Appling fresh grease to the kingpins on a Morgan can never hurt. Removing as much old, dirty grease from the springs as possible afterwards is highly recommended. Unlike the MGB – the Morgan disc brakes do not have a dust cover. Therefore I always use break cleaner and give the discs a good wipe as last step.
The AVO shocks are adjustable. There are 16 adjustment steps between soft and hard and so far I had them on the softer side – with 5 clicks on the adjuster from the softest setting. I increased to 10 clicks now. When double checking all bolts and nuts again I found that the crossbar on the front crossmember needed to be tighten significantly.
Another problem is that the right front wheel rubs against the brake reaction bar when the steering is pointing completely to the right or left. I previous used the screws of the steering stop – now I drilled new holes a bit further in. This solves the interference with the brake reaction bar – but it is also annoying to hit the solid steering stops. I will order two Rolling steering stops from Melywn Rutter to address this.
All those small changes – AVO dampers, front and rear wheel swap, tightend crossbar – resulted in a massive handling improvement. The shaky front is gone, small bumps and holes in the road are swallowed much better. I also tested to set the shock absorbers to maximum hardness – but went back to the setting slightly above the middle.
Fixing C6622 
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