Metro Hubs??
Turbo Mini Forums

Hi all,

Bought a mini turbo at the weekend and needs an Mot, Apparently the tracking needs doing and when i looked at it at lunch the inside edge of the tread on both tyres is completly worn, I looked at the hubs and ball joints and they dont appear to be mini ones,

They look like metro hubs so if this is the fact will i have to change them back to mini hubs?
If i dont need to change them what will i need to do to make them right? could i run the metro hubs etc and just get the camber and tracking set?

Hope i made sense,

Thanks in advance Matt

WooHoo Passed it's MOT!!!! One of the cars in The Portsmouth Mini Turbo Massive!!

You can run them but the geometry will never be perfect. To make it drivable you'll need adjustable bottom arms and tie rods and get it set up,

also keep an eye on how many threads of engagement are left in the trackrod ends!!!

I'd change it to mini stuff......

Alex

AlexF

i have the metro hubs fitted and mines set up and it handels fabola

right if you are sticking with these replace the ball joints i bet thes are knackerd!

pre 1983 ones are the ones you need as they are the same taper as the mini balljoints

right !.... when you fit the metro hubs to a mini and you are using the standard bottom arms your camber will be set to 1degree positive (no good)

you need adjustable camber arms or you can but from minispares or minisport 1.5 neg btm arms or 2.5 deg btm arms this will give you then a camber of 1/2 deg or in the case of 2.5 arms 1.5 deg

IMO use the 1.5 arms as this will give you 1/2deg camber perfect for a road motor and chav bashing mini !

the next thing to concider is the caster using the metty hubs the caster is one degree differs to the mini basically shifting the king pin inclination to the back of the car
(causing the tea trolly affect ) but ...... its not noticable that much TBH.

this is where you do need adjustable tiebars have the caster set to 5.5 degrees and it will transform your mini with the handeling

hope this helps you!

That still doesn't fix the KPI thou...

Alex

AlexF

the KPI will be corrected with the adjustable tie bars alex:

So are you using metro discs and calipers with mini drive flanges?

Whats going to break next!?

Turbominis Worst Advice winner 2006, get in

Never looked that hard at a metro hub, so whats the difference in the balljoint pick up points on the hub ?? I could still see the Kinpin inclanation angle being out even if your measured castor is correct.

slim its the caliper hubs disks the whole metro lot

my car handels fantastic tom fenton will back this up but tom hasent pushed it fully yet!

mirage (NONE)
kpi is only a few degrees nothing to worry about

There seems to be mixed opinions on that one.
I'm not entirely sure myself but i do know when i was upgrading my brakes to metro four pots all internet sources advised against using metro hubs.
I retained mini hubs and drive flanges just used the metro discs after a little machining on the inside with a lathe and spacers for the caliper. Although i have now lost two of the spacers and several washers take their place.

Edit: Oh yeah Ben dont forget about your bonnet

Edited by slim_shadyuk on 10th Jan, 2006.

Whats going to break next!?

Turbominis Worst Advice winner 2006, get in

be back to you on the bonnet thanks!

what was the main reason or reasons to the donts on the hub advice???

I have also ran metro huns on a past mini with no noticable difference in handling.

ive got to say ive ran metro hubs and they gave me all sorts of handling problems, although the ease of replacing balljoints is a bonus, the effort to get the car to handle right was too much for this lazy bum...

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

What i read said it altered all the angles etc as you have already stated and that even though negative camber arms and adjustable tie rods help correct this the handling is still unpredictable! or something like that it was a few years ago

Whats going to break next!?

Turbominis Worst Advice winner 2006, get in

KPI is not changed by the tie bars... thats castor!

a few degrees of KPI makes lots of difference!

Its not a great deal to use mini hubs!! So just use them :)

Alex

AlexF

If you just do a quick google for something like 'using metro hubs on a mini' you'll turn up quite a few sites offering info.
Here are just two, Z cars seems to have no worries about metro hubs but dsn classics does read for yourself.

http://www.dsnclassics.co.uk/mini-tech-metrohubs.html

http://www.zcars.org.uk/mini/selfbuild3.htm

Whats going to break next!?

Turbominis Worst Advice winner 2006, get in

Hi, Thanks for the advice. I have a mini set up on a car im selling so il swap these over as i dont really have the money to spend on getting the suspension set up perfectly. I have also heard that its best to use the mini set up prob because its easier to set up im not sure.

Thanks for all your advice matt

WooHoo Passed it's MOT!!!! One of the cars in The Portsmouth Mini Turbo Massive!!

alex......

On 10/01/2006 22:41:36 benross said:

alex......

AlexF

Bens car does handle extremely well, although as he says I have not given it any serious leather, as its a lovely car, and its not mine!!