here is a link to a tire comparison chart:

http://www.turbinecar.com/tires.htm

it says that 165 60 14 tires are comparable to your old ones. Discount Tyres, all over NZ, sells a Yokohama 165 65 14 which is close.
Maybe take your spare into a store and compare it to see if you like it. Don't know the cost of the tyre. Hope this is of some help to you! Cheers



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2012 01:34PM by bufferzone.

Thanks Gord, I appreciate your input and will consider this when I seek a tyre supplier. However, the overwhelming weight of opinion from this and other forums on radial replacements for the sedans indicates that any tyre wider than a 155 is far too wide for the very skinny rims that our cars have. We'll see what happens in due course and I will keep this forum advised.

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Rob Hammington
Tamahere
Hamilton RD3
New Zealand

Post has been removed by the administrator due to violation of the Terms of Service.

Greetings all,

I am new to this forum, will probably lurk for a while becoming familiar with the sort of discussions posted here. I am certainly impressed with the very professional appearance of the forum site and look forward to "virtually" meeting another group of Morris owners.

I have two Morris Minors, a 1950 Series MM tourer which has been mildly customized and had its performance enhanced by the addition of an Alta OHV conversion which was done by the original owner back when the Alta head was first introduced. Interestingly, he provided a box of correspondence when I bought the car which includes his letters to Alta Engineering as he attempted to buy a head before they were ready to put them on sale to the public. I had the car out the other day to test out a new tour route that I am planning for a local British Car Club. March 20 is exceedingly early for open cars in Canada but we're having a spell of very warm weather.

The other Morris is a 1967 two door Minor 1000 (actually a 1098) that I hope to have out of the body shop before the tour date which is April 15. This one will have a set of new Toyo 155X14 radials on it before it hits the road. I, too, have done a lot of research on tires and for the Minor and these Toyos are the best compromise I can find. My MM tourer rides on Bridgestone 145X14 tires that look better than 155s although they do make a few more revolutions per mile.

Hi Darrell. Nice looking MM you have there!! I'm new to this forum too but find it useful and informative. Thanks for the comment re tyres. The Toyos are not available in that size in NZ sadly but I can get one of another Asian brand which apparently is OK, a 155/80/14. Enjoy the forum.

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Rob Hammington
Tamahere
Hamilton RD3
New Zealand

Thanks for the welcome Rob. My wife and I visited your beautiful country a couple of years ago (the year before the Christchurch earthquake). Our last day there we were in Hamilton and spent hours at the Botanical Gardens. They were a revelation and a great pleasure to visit.

Darrell

Hello again Rob,
I've just been browsing and found your earlier post. As we have already discussed the best compromise on tire size is the 155-80-14. I wonder if you have noticed that 80% of a 155, which is 6.1", is very close to 100% of a tall skinny 5.2" tire. Due to the more flexible sidewalls on the radials it is also recommended to run them at 32 PSI not the 24 recommended by Morris for the old bias ply tire. I think you will find you are so close to parity of revolutions per mile as not to matter. The difference would tend to correct the usually optimistic Morris speedo. :-)

As for the price the tire company is asking I think you might be just as well off to order them from Bull Motif or ESM in the UK. I find that even with quite a big shipping cost (No match for the cost to NZ I suppose) the tires from UK are cheaper here than any others I can get. Let's see, $150 NZ = 76.80 GBP today. Bull Motif wants only 150GBP for a set of 4 155X14 Toyo tires which is about $293 NZ, and that's four tyres. How much would they charge for shipping? Mine came air freight but if you're patient they would be a lot less expensive by sea. I think ESM is selling Nankangs, which are widely used on UK Minors, and they are cheaper than Toyo.

Happy shopping,

Darrell

PS - many years ago I did my honeymoon trip in a nearly new Minor Series II with an 803. The gearbox ratios are terrible but the 803 needs the advantage to get moving at all.

Thanks Darrell, all, very interesting and useful info. I did contemplate getting tyres from overseas but unfortunately there is a downside to this option. Apart from a probable substantial freight charge, on arrival, the package would be stopped by NZ Customs and I would be charged sales tax and GST which would put the costs way above what I would pay here. Takes it into the 'too hard' basket I think!! Nice thought though!!

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Rob Hammington
Tamahere
Hamilton RD3
New Zealand

Yeah, they do that here too but I'd have to pay the sales tax anyway. They take it at the point of sale here. I do find that a few things just sail past the trolls so I play the game and pay when they demand it. A set of tires would certainly not slip by them.

Darrell

Hi Rob

About six months ago I put radials on Agatha (63 Morris 1000). After much research I found the best easy match was 175/60-14 but when I turned up at the Palmy Firestone the fellow there assured me they had done many of them and the tyre to use was 165/80-14. It works fine even though it has a much larger circumference. The main point made to me is that the this is about the widest tyre for the rim and the 80% profile is best for ride. The other thing I did as suggested by several web sites was include tubes when the tyre were fitted because the old Morris rims don't have a bead on the edge for proper sealing on tubeless tyres.


Cheers
Pat

Thanks Pat, I appreciate your input and advice. I will consider this when I finally buy some tyres. Do you know if the 165/80/14 has a larger rolling circumference than my old crossplys as this may slightly assist the low gearing if so? Also, is your car on the same rims as my '56 Series II, i.e., 3.5" wide? The general consensus so far has been that a 155 is about as wide as is safe for my rims but I am always open to suggestion. A 165 is possibly a heck of a lot easier to buy than a 155 which is like rocking horse poo in a 14" version!!

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Rob Hammington
Tamahere
Hamilton RD3
New Zealand

put most of the front suspension back together this arvo. went to the local vintage car club swap meet and picked up a couple of books on the minor 1000 as well as fiats, but the best score is a minor 1000 parts list.this lists everything that was avaliable for the minor 1000 with all body styles ,eg: part #bca 4913 temperature gauge as an optional extra, it breaks the body ( saloon ) down to all the parts that make up the body, even the heaters with 5 variations shown. if you ever manage to come across one snap it up, you wont be sorry.

Took her for a nice long drive to test the new sealed front wheel bearings - all good! Once home tightened the nut holding the fan to the water pump spindle which had worked loose again

finished reassembeling the front suspension so it can be moved outside where it will reside under cover to be used for parts when needed.put the good lo lite front guards and grille panel in the boot of the commodore to be taken to the panelbeaters (bodyshop) tommorow.

Hi Rob

The 165/80-14 is a bit larger. The best match for rolling radius would have been 165/70-14 if the rims were a correct match. I've checked a few web sites and found a formula: [tyre profile] X 1.4 X [metric conversion] = [proper rim width] ie. 0.155 X 1.4 X 25.4 = 5.5118. So the right rim width for your 155 tyres should be 5.5"(I think). However I'm running 165's with no problems so far on 4" rims. I think this is why the tyre dealer sold me tyres with 80% profile rather than 70%, to allow the tyre wall to flex in on my 4" rims. And that's why I'm running tubes with it.

Heres a site with a tyre size calculator:
http://www.1010tires.com/tiresizecalculator.asp?err=98&rsn=usr-snt-emty-str

And here's another that also has some comparison tables for crossply/radial tyres:
http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible.html

Cheers
Pat

Not that I an expert but Pat your formula is kind of wack, but thanks for the motivation.

If you go to regular tyre shop website like Bridgestone and grab a tyre they will show you the range of wheel/rim width recommend use the tyre on i.e. 165 R can go on rim 4" - 5.5".

The rolling radius seems to be what people are more concerned about for the low ratio geartrain on the older morris especially.

Regards,

Check this link. To see how another member has made these available to all. Is the book you found different from what he has posted?

Hi Paul

Yeah I've certainly got something wrong there.

... I've done some more searching and here is something more reliable:

http://www.ehow.com/how_7479636_size-tires-rim-width.html

3
Divide the rim width by a factor to obtain the proper tire section width for the wheel. For tires with aspect ratios of 50 to 80 the factor is 0.70. For tires with aspect ratios less than 50 the factor is 0.85. For example, if your rim width is 7.5 inches and you want a tire with a 70 aspect ratio, divide 7.5 by 0.70 giving an answer of 10.7 inches.
4
Convert the result in inches to millimeters, multiply by 25.4 and round down to the nearest odd multiple of five. For the example, 10.7 times 25.4 equals 271. This would be rounded to 265, the nearest odd multiple of 5. Aspect ratios only come as odd multiples of five, such as 195, 205 or 215.
5
Look for tires with the section width and aspect ratio you calculated on the diameter of your wheel. If the example wheel is 16 inches in diameter, the desired tire size is 265/70R16.

Make a good Tui add anyhow. Could always send an email to NZ LTSA you would expect some conservative response from them as they should have transport specific details!

the book that i found is basicaly the same thing in a different form. it has the plates showing the exploded veiw as in this one but i think in more detail, but the parts list is a little more detailed in this one it appears.without going through the one on here and comparing with my one page for page so to speak, i would guess they would be fairly simmilar and could differ outwardly for the different markets maybe. and here i thought i was on to something good.

dropped the good lo light guards and grille panel of to the blasters today. will pick them up on friday as hes a liitle busy and im not in any great rush.oh yeah, i opened up a bourbon aswell and then i had to drink it. lifes tough .

You are onto something good :-) I have been searching for years for parts books, for the early Minor especially, but any parts book is very useful for the great exploded illustrations. I once worked for BMC Canada in the warranty claims department and it was there I learned to use the Parts book more often than the Service Manual.

Darrell McDonald

Still busy stripping my Morry to get it to paint. In the meantime I am trying to get the parts that are missing or needs to be replaced - what a list. A Morris samaritan just came to my rescue and are sending me a fuel refill pipe. There are still good guys around!!!!

started to adapt a fiat stalk unit ( lights/wipers) to the morrie coloum, and i think it will work well. had to ream out the hole in the unit a little so the morrie coloum will turn freely and make a plate to weld to the morrie outer coloum so as to bolt the unit onto. i was going to use a 323 mazda/ford telstar coloum but if i can pull this one off i can use the original mounts ect.

Yesterday I gathered the materials to make door pull straps for my 1952 MM.

A few weeks ago we had unusually high temperatures (80s F) so I took it for a spin, washed it and put away.

Sprayed the shuts on my doors then bolted the sump back on my motor and fitted it in me travlr. Starter is all bolted up and all the stuff on the block, then I went out for a blast on me Buell, I'll bolt the head and bits on tamorra.

Well, I had a bit of time today as it is a holiday here in Bermuda, so I put on the new bumper Chrome Trim and newly chromed over-riders on the moggy. Then a new bonnet opener clip was installed as mine broke from I guess; age. She is really starting to look like my old girl again. I was going for the 50's retro look and have made modifications over time, and so decided to rebuild the center console originally there and a friend of mine has offered to reupholster the completed bits in the traditional black tuck and roll look. it really will look like it came with the car.

Anyhow, I hope to update soon as I progress a bit more.

Zach

Took Jethro for a 45 mile round trip today to see if everything was working OK.
Apart from having to top up with a small amount of coolant and a slightly leaking sump gasket the car ran really well considering it was a very hot day!
Had a real struggle getting used to the gearbox and having to select gears very carefully and slowly compared with modern cars. Finally got the hang of it after about 10 miles and was changing gear up and down with no noise and using the semaphore trafficators at the right time! Got loads of smiles and waves from other drivers.
A very enjoyable run and hopefully the first of many.

I hoisted my motor off the floor, turned it upside down and lowered it onto the bench. I fitted a 3/8ths BSP fitting to take the ancilliary sender for my oil temperature gauge into the side of the sump (oil pan), got a few newish gaskets and cork strips and bolted this all onto the block liberally coating everything with Permatex black. I've already fitted the rear seal kit, the one that bears on the flywheel flange, in my hope to finally fix the oil leaks from the rear of the motor. The sump then got a quick coat of paint and that was it for the day, anyway its 27 hot degrees C. outside so I took off for the beach. Shoreham by Sea - very nice!

Ah yes, these cars do love to leave their "calling card" in the parking spot don't they! Good luck with the seals, sounds like you're on top of it, sounds too hot to be working on the car.

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