Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rick]

What small, cheap, easy-to-implement difference to how a car was designed and/or built, would have transformed the survival rate for that type of car years down the line? Or made them a whole lot easier to live with in their old age?

I'm thinking along the lines of early Mini floors, and how they were welded at the factory, that kind of thing.

RJ
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[Bitumen Boy]

Having wrestled with the rear suspension on my Herald enough times to know the job pretty much inside out, I can't help feeling that a straightforward live axle would have been a better choice. Probably cheaper to manufacture and definitely easier to live with than than the swing axle setup - if ST wanted to brag about the Herald having IRS they should have spent the money to do it properly or not bothered at all. It's interesting to note that the Indian-built Heralds evolved a live axle after a few years, eventually they became very different cars to suit local conditions.

Another one that comes to mind is the master cylinders on Minis - surely they could have been made easier to remove?

[Keith D]

A longer spline on Mini drive shafts to allow the universals to be replaced without disconnecting the upper ball joint. Some people reckon you can do this, but I've never had one with a long enough spline.

Keith

[BigJohn]

Going to be controversial here and maybe upset a fewRover P6 owners. P6 front suspension, change the crazy bell crank system, and at the rear, make the brakes outbound for easy servicing, and change the mad calipers for conventional 2 pot. My P6b was a cow to do rear brake work on. The suspension on the P6 has it rolling like a drunken sow riding a tandem with flat tyres, OK it stayed on the road, but what a handful.
In Fact change the lot into a Triumph 2.5, beef up the back springs, and throw the V8 in.
P6b Sorted.

[emmerson]

A Range Rover Classic without built in water and mud traps would have been good. And a heater motor you could access without a ten hour dash removal, and .......................................etc!
But I still love it to bits.

[Peter_L]

[Peter_L]

Had BMC spent a bit more money on their engine for the Mini, the idler gear, that troubled the more powerful 1100/1300 cc engines could have been avoided.

Why did Ford and others insist on putting the engine to chassis earth strap under the car ?

and... who the heck at Ford designed the V6 engine I had in my Explorer. They must have stayed up late for many nights just finding ways that required almost every routine, except changing the oil, to involve removing the engine.

The factory fitted the engine, suspension transmission from below and if one had the equipment it was hours easier to get it out that way.

[emmerson]

Another one that annoys on almost all cars - why don't "they" make the washers start before the wipers, thereby avoiding the wipers scraping across the dry screen?

[peter scott]

[goneps]

[Ray White]

Seeing how Austin had the Seven in production for so many years one would have thought they could have got to grips with the braking system (no pun intended). Admittedly an attempt was made to improve things when they coupled the front and rear brakes but this could have been so much better if they had included a compensator. Without such a device, the front and back brake cables have to be adjusted to come on all at the same time.

For those unaware of short wheelbase A7 brake adjustment, due to the twist in the brake cross shaft brackets the near side rear has to be given a slight lead over the off side. To add to the nightmare a slight lead of the front brakes over the rear is required because the front axle has a tendency to rotate with braking load - the long radius arms also bend - effectively extending the front cable travel. Remember; they all need to come on at the same time so if you have reasonable braking at speed, the rear brakes can lock up at slow speed. The drums were also made of pressed steel instead of cast iron but it is now possible to change them.

On a positive point, all these difficulties are a challenge for the Austin 7 owners to debate and tackle. Without them life would probably be less interesting...or frightening.

[ka]

Being able to replace the Ford Pinto cam from the front, instead of either a head or engine removal, although I have to admit, the work from these replacements kept the kids fed for years through the 80's.
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KA

Better three than four.

[peter scott]

Having recently restored a Wolseley 6/80 engine from being totally filled with water and seized I think the designer should have given more consideration to recovery from the seized condition!

1. With all the pistons seized in their bores you need to be able to disconnect their con rods from the crank otherwise you are fighting all six at once but with angled big end caps it is impossible to get a socket spanner onto some of the retaining bolts that are well inside the crankcase.

2. With an overhead camshaft whose bearings are attached to the cylinder head by arches cast into the head and cannot be split you need to remove the camshaft longitudinally which means that you need special tools that compress all twelve valves simultaneously. This of course is made more difficult when most of the twelve are seized in their guides. It would have been so much easier if the cam bearing retainers could be split.

3. It would have made setting the ignition timing very much easier if the timing marks had been on the crankshaft pulley rather than on the flywheel given that you want to see the marks whilst rotating the crank into position.

Peter
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1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[lowdrag]

Two words. Rust proofing. I'll never forget going to Roger Clark's garage at Narborough one day to look at a new Alfa GTV. The headlamp reflector was already brown with rust.

[baconsdozen]