Moss Motors, Ltd

Hi.I'm new to the forum and hope this is not too much of an obvious question, but here we go anyway.

I have just been given a 1966 Morris Mini Minor by my wife. It used to belong to her mother, and has spent the last twenty years in storage. Sadly in that time it has deteriorated and now needs attention. The worst point is that the hydrolastic suspension on the o/s has collapsed, and refuses to respond to pressure. Since both subframes are going to have to come out anyway, I was wondering if it was a good idea to convert it to dry suspension, using units from a newer donor car. I do have a 1979 Mini with a corroded shell - would this do?  Is it considered 'bad form' to modify what must now be a rare car in this way? Does any one know where you can purchase or recondition Hydrolastic units if this is the way to go?

Any thoughts or comments please. Thanks.

Hello Adrian,

Personally, I wouldn't change it.

A syou have stated yourself a '66 car is now a fairly rare item which carries a certain amount of rarity value.... if you were to remove what is a major element of the car's orignality then you would also be removing a considerable part of it's value.   It would also cost more to replace all the components than simply repairing the existing system.

You have another car to act as donor ... but there were a series of changes introduced between 1966 and '79 which would affect what might appear to be a strightforward swap.  None of them are major .... but they all add up to a significant move away from the originality of the '66 car.

I would rebuild it to original spec..... I could imagine that if you didn't you'd soon begin to think ..."if only...."

The hydrolastic system is actually quite easy to rebuild and I actually prefer it for general road use ...mind you, I have the Churchill pump unit sitting in the garage which I bought when I had my 3rd mini back in 1972... so it's easy for me to say so... ;-)

Seriously though... I'd rebuild it to original spec .... there are too few original cars left these days.

Ian 

Ho Ho happy new ones...

This is a good one. My first thoughts were, change it to dry then I wavered slightly in favour of keeping it original.

The reason I changed my mind is that as a 1966 model, its never going to be a race type mini so why not keep it as near to standard as possible. The wet system is only water so as IanB wrote, if you have the pump arrangement its reasonably simple.

There must be a fair amount of "mods of the day" available to you how about going that way?