7 replies to this topic

[DJS911]

My son and I are in the process of rebuilding a Mini ready for when he's 17. The front subframe was loosely fitted when we got the car and it has solid mounts.
Bearing in mind that the car is going to be used by him to learn to drive is there a benefit to keeping the solid mounts or would it give a better ride/drive for him if we returned it to rubber mounts?
Thanks in anticipation of any advice.

[sonikk4]

Pro's, sharper handling, more direct the way they should be.

 

Con's, slightly harder ride, possible cracking of the toeboard on later models.

 

Never mix and match though.

[DJS911]

Thanks Neil - perfect explanation.

[spiguy]

I wouldn't think there is much benefit for a 17 year old learning to drive, of the solid mounts. I'd say they are more for when you are chucking the car about at speed, then it really sharpens up the handling. You probably hope that he won't be doing that any time soon, certainly not during lessons !

 

If it is a later car (don't know exactly when from, but probably anything 80's, 90's or beyond) the toe board where the mounts bolt to was made of thinner steel, so if you fit solid mounts you run the risk of cracking the floor. Usually on the drivers side (since there is always a driver adding weight I presume) and usually at the bottom mounting hole area.

 

Some people will tell you they have used them for years without issue, some will say their floor cracked. I'm in the 'my floor cracked' group. Really if you plan to fit solid you should beef up the reinforcement plates and fit larger ones to spread the load better - that means removing the old ones and welding in new larger ones. I suspect the main issue is that the reinforcement plate ends almost exactly at the bottom hole, so there really isn't any load spreading taking place there, and the floor will flex and can crack.

 

You can always come back to it and change over to solid mounts in future, it isn't something you need to decide on during the build - ie you can fit rubber mounts now, and then in future do the beefing up of the plates and change to solid. The plates are on the inside anyway, so makes little difference if the car is all built up.

 

I now run rubber mounts, and though I notice the difference, I still drive the mini (sometimes...) pretty quickly, and chuck it about etc and I don't really feel that it underperforms. Maybe I am just getting old!

[Cooperman]

As has been said before, rubber mounts were introduced to replace the solid mounts as fitted to ALL Minis for many years in order to cater for the changing target market. That is changing from the younger person to middle-aged women.

[sonikk4]

The twin bolt subframes mount differently on the toeboard as they extend to just under the toeboard floor panel mounting point hence stronger.

 

If you have a car that was built up to 75 then it will be solidly mounted especially the clubby. To be honest unless a 17 year old gets into a rubber mounted car then a solidly mounted one then how will they know the difference. When we bought Paddy my lad would not have been able to tell the difference straight away so a bit of a moot point to be honest.

[DJS911]

Thanks guys.
It's a '79 car and given what's been said so far I think we'll stick with what the car came with - solid mounts.

[spiguy]

aye, fair enough. I suspect the toe board will be of thicker stuff at that age and if it's not showing any signs of cracking having been run with solids then should be fine to keep it that way.