Messagepar HerveLG » 25 avr. 2024, 21:50
Voilà le commentaire d'un lecteur de l'annonce parue en 2020 aux USA pour la vente de ma Mog:
I can shed some
I can shed some light on this discussion. I own 4/4 Series II A298. It is entirely original and has been in the family since 1963. The serial numbers run from A200, said to be the prototype by Ken Hill in his 1980 book on the cowled rad 4 wheelers, to A586. A298 shipped from the works in April, 1957 to Fergus in NYC. My father bought the car off a used car lot in New Kensington, PA. The red car in these pictures has a wider body than A298 and other early Series II. The body on this red car is the one you see on the Series III cars which were fitted with the 998cc EnFo 105E OHV engine with 4 speed gearbox. According to Miles the S III cars came out in October, 1960. I'd guess, without knowing the serial number, this red car is a very late S II that wound up with the later style body. Knowing Morgan it wouldn't surprise me if they had run out of the narrow bodies, still had some 100E engines and gearboxes laying around, and figured what the heck, let's drop the old engines in the new bodies and call them S II cars. That is of course just my speculation. I in fact have no idea when the body change really happened, but I can tell you with certainty that A298 and I'm sure earlier are narrower bodies. You can spot them at least two ways. One is that there are two rubber/metal base strips on the running boards, not one as on this car. Also the narrow body car has more rear fender/wing reveal by probably a couple of inches compared to the red car.
I'm not pointing out any of this to be critical of the red car. It looks wonderful. I'm just pointing out that with cars that were then and still are essentially hand-built variations happened. That's probably part of the charm of a Morgan.
The shift pattern is 'reversed' because of the linkage. The engine and gearbox are so tiny that most if not all of the gearbox is forward of the firewall with the tail shaft extending to the rear of the firewall. The shift lever sprouts straight up out of the gear box, on the engine side of the firewall. I could go out in the garage and measure it but I'm a bit too lazy for that at the moment. I'd guesstimate that the lever is about 12 inches +/- long. If has a clevis sort of arrangement at the top where it connects to the horizontal lever you can see in the pictures of this car. that horizontal lever passes through a bush in the firewall. As you can see in the pictures of this one the lever dips down, runs straight, then goes up a bit, kind of a 'U' shape with leg closest to the dashboard shorter than the other. This arrangement winds up 'converting' the normal 3 speed pattern to the opposite hand pattern by the time it gets to the shift lever. The only places the horizontal lever are supported are at the clevis atop the lever sticking straight up from the gearbox and the bush where it passes through the firewall. It's a pretty floppy arrangement but it works if you take your time shifting. First is non-synchro. The ratio gap between second and third is a killer. You could drive a truck through that gap. Johnfromstaffs noted the ratio spread in his comments above.
For folks interested in 100E's a company in England has the rights to the Aquaplane name and reproduces 50s era Aquaplane 'hop up' parts for the 100E and 93A (I think that's what the earlier engine was called). You can also buy a drop in electronic ignition from a shop in England. It fits in the stock distributor. Another shop over there also has an alternator conversion that fits in the original Lucas generator housing. All kind of fun toys out there to get a bit more power out of the 100E. The Small Ford Spares folks even make the Aquaplane bell housing conversion to let you mate up a later EnFo four speed to the 100E. One of those four speeds we know as the Pinto four speed with the 4 bolt main cover. The Pinto with the 8 or 10, whatever it is, main cover is the German four speed. You'd have to do some fiddling to make the conversion work.
Quite a few people above commented that the S II car can be a lot fun to drive as it is. That's true. Your butt is only about six or eight inches off the ground. The door is cut so low you can actually reach out and touch the ground.
Another little aside, my car still has the original floor boards, yes boards, not plywood. A lot of cars have had the floor boards changed out for plywood. I have no idea whether that was also a running change made by the factory.
That's probably more than anyone wanted to know about Morgan 4/4 Series II cars!
Where there's a will there's a way
, avec un reste de palier cassé. 
