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PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 12:07 pm 
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watto wrote:
Hmmm....


Should CAMS homoligation papers be considered accurate? Well, if not, then why all the fuss when you wanted to run a car with a bore or stroke that differed from what was on the papers - after all, it would only be a little bit bigger...

To suggest that anything on the CAMS papers is simply BS or a mistake is to question the validity of the homoligation papers in their entirety.



Cheers,
Watto.


These Homoligation Papers are Clearly Inaccurate.
They do not List the Clubman GT as having an Engine Number prefix of 9FXEY which the early cars most certainly Did. along with the other Listed Numbers.
So therefore a Clubman GT With a 9FXEY engine was Not Permitted in the class?? :roll:
Something wrong somewhere wouldn't you say? :shock:
Given this mistake, and that it is a fact, What makes you think that the rest of the document is Correct?

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 1:07 pm 
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Quote:
I'm sure someone will have more to say on this subject, but I will not.


OK, I lied.

Yes, I looked into that and while it does appear to be an anomaly, there are a few other factors to consider.

Production of the Clubman GT began in July 1971, not September 1971 as listed on the homoligation papers.

The first 260 or so cars did have Cooper S engines designated 9F/Xe/Y.

The latest chassis number that I can find (and my list is certainly not exhaustive) that has a 9F/Xe/Y engine is 763 (chassis numbers having started at 501, of course). This car has a compliance plate dated October 1971, but as we know the date on the compliance plate is not necessarily the date of manufacture, but the date of shipping to the dealership. However, with the Clubman GT, particularly early cars, these are likely to be the same or close.

The earliest car I can find that has an engine with prefix 1200 is car 507 (the 7th one built) with compliance plate date of July 1971.

It would appear, though, from information available on the 80 or so cars I have listed, that virtually all cars dated from at least October 1971, possibly built in September, had the 1200 series engines.

Now, the 1200 engines were identical to the 9F/Xe/Y engines. The only difference appears to be the numbering system, due to a change in policy by Leyland on 3 August 1970 for new engine numbering systems. This obviously took around 12 months to implement (typical of most similar decisions), but was certainly in effect by July 1971. Many of the early Clubman GTs clearly used up remaining stock of 9F/Xe/Y engines.

It would seem then that certainly by the time the Clubman GT was released, the 1200 series engines had been released. The fact that early cars used engines designated for use in Cooper S is also typical of BMC-Leyland (and most other companies) in using up remaining stock.

The date of commencement of production, September 1971, would also have been supplied by the manufacturer - do you think CAMS went out and arbitrarily chose their own manufacturing periods and technical details of cars? Or do you think the people at CAMS had the time to pull apart and measure every new car that came out on the market?

It may simply have been a case of Leyland Australia listing September as the start date to avoid confusion with the Cooper S engines.

I can't say what was going on with the people at Leyland at the time, but the point I am trying to make is that the information on the form would have been supplied to CAMS by Leyland so any error, etc on there is most likely the fault of Leyland, not CAMS.

The fact that the 9F engines were not listed may in fact have made those cars ineligible to compete in production racing, because the CAMS scrutineers would have had to go by what is in the papers, mistakes or not.

As for 1206 and 1208 series engines, these were the later type engines, from December 1972 and were not identical to the 9F engines. It is believed these were the Rationalised 1275cc engines from the English 1275GT - see Issue 19 of the Mini Experience for more detail.

Interestingly, while 1200 and 1206 engines were the standard production engines, 1208 is listed which was the replacement short engine for the 1206, but 1201 and 1202 were not listed, although they are standard replacement short engines for 1200. Does this mean the CAMS documents are completely wrong? Of course not. But it might mean that if you turned up with a car with a 1201 or 1202 engine in it, that you would have had to do some explaining and may even have had to have the engine stripped and measured.

Further on in the papers, on the page with all the technical specifications of the engine, no engine number prefix is used. I would suggest that perhaps anyone wanting to run a standard car with a 9F engine could have referred to those specs and had their engine checked for compliance.

The 1205, 1207 and 1209 engines are also not listed on the front of the document, as they were for the Police-spec engines, which were covered in amendment 1/IV later in the papers.

So, my point here is that just because you are not in possession of all the facts, don't assume that anyone who has a contrary opinion is wrong.

The full extent of the detail in the homologation papers, running out to 11 pages, lists what was permitted to run and any variation from that would have to have been taken up at the time. Technically, because the 9F engine is not listed and the production commencement date is listed as September 1971, then anyone with an earlier car with 9F engine may indeed have had a problem competing with it. That is something you would need to ask anyone who went through that scenario, though there weren't many (Ray Molloy being one of the few when he raced a Clubman GT at Bathurst, but that was not until 1975).

Don't be too mislead by the date on the CAMS papers as being September 1971 (this is a commencement of production date, not the date the papers were submitted), but having the engine number prefixes listed for December 1972 cars, as the homologation would not have been able to go ahead until the required number of cars had been built.

The CAMS homologation papers were as important, in fact probably more so in Australia, as the FIA homologation papers, and therefore it was the manufacturer's responsibility to ensure they were accurate.

All of this, though, ignores the fact that as the information supplied by the factory lists the Clubman GT as a Morris, then this is strong evidence (granted, not total proof) that the factory did refer to the Clubman series of cars as Morris.

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 3:48 pm 
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watto wrote:
Quote:
I'm sure someone will have more to say on this subject, but I will not.

OK, I lied.

I, for one, hope you will continue to contribute your deep knowledge of such topics. You usually present evidence in a calm, structured and balanced way, highlighting deficiencies where they occur, and without getting personal. I have learnt a lot from your posts in this thread (and others). It isn't about determining the winner of a debate; it's about presenting arguments in an open and healthy fashion so others can learn, and also contribute. That's why I continue to participate in this forum.

forum: a meeting or assembly for the open discussion of subjects of public interest

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 Post subject: Model Name
PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 10:14 am 
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Thanks for your comments all, especially Watto.

I am still trying to digest what it all means.

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 10:45 am 
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watto wrote:
Hi Steve.

Not wanting to get into an argument, but the compliance plate only tells part of
The compliance plates on the two Mini S (Gambier Turquoise and Plum Loco cars above) both illustrate this - to make the change easily and cheaply (a Leyland trait, no doubt) the word "British" was simply ground off the tooling for the plates.

Cheers,
Watto.


Tooling? I always thought that somewhere in the deep recesses of Zetland etc they had a team of lowly paid Apprentices in a sweatshop somewhere hand stamping the compliance plates :lol: :arrow: anyone found any spelling mistakes??? :D

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 10:57 am 
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watto wrote:
Hmmm....

I wouldn't say it is proof either, but certainly evidence in support of an argument.

Sadly, without original factory drawings it is not going to be possible to prove anything, either way.

I'm not really sure how much it matters, but obviously it has stirred up a bit of a hornets nest on a seemingly minor technicality.

Should CAMS homoligation papers be considered accurate? Well, if not, then why all the fuss when you wanted to run a car with a bore or stroke that differed from what was on the papers - after all, it would only be a little bit bigger...

Naturally, all the information on the homoligation papers would have been supplied by the manufacturers and it was up to them to ensure that all cars of the listed type met the specifications as laid out in the papers. It would therefore have been the manufacturer who supplied the information on the car's make and model to CAMS, so it is unlikely that CAMS would have been the ones to make the mistake.

To suggest that anything on the CAMS papers is simply BS or a mistake is to question the validity of the homoligation papers in their entirety.

As I said, without something concrete from the Leyland factory, the question will not be completely answered either way.

I offer as further evidence, though not proof, so don't go bad-mouthing this little snippet either, that the new book recently put out by the BMC-Leyland Heritage Group, Building Cars In Australia, lists the Mini Clubman series (1971 to 1972) - saloon van and GT, as being Morris.

While it is certainly conceivable that this could be a mistake, and later (in fact only the next page) it lists the Clubman GT as Leyland Mini GT (1972 to 1973).

However, I should point out that the main people involved in the production of this book are all former engineering staff at BMC-Leyland's Zetland factory and were some of the people directly involved in the development of these cars. They have always insisted to me when asked, that the Clubman series was originally referred to as a Morris.

It is also important to understand that what was done by the marketing and sales people was not always in accordance with the engineering people. Witness the Mini K (where K literally stood for Kangaroo, denoting that the car had 90% local content) which was the name given to the car by the sales department, whereas in engineering terms it was the Morris Mini De Luxe Mk2 - and was designated YG2S1. As the Mk2 versions of the Mini were basically the same as the Mk1 but with 1098cc engines instead of 998cc and a few cosmetic changes (the Mk2 Cooper S of course retaining the 1275cc engine) there was little or no engineering requirement needed so the cars were still designated YDO4, YDO5 and YDO6, as per the Mk1.

Interestingly, though the YDO21 is referred to as Morris Mini Clubman (Std), but had a boot badge that said Mini 1100 and chassis prefix YG2S6; YDO22 is Morris Mini Clubman (Deluxe) but the boot badge says Mini Clubman and the chassis prefix is YG2S7; while YDO23 is the Morris Mini Clubman GT but the boot badge only says it is a Clubman GT (does that mean it is not really a Mini?) and it has a chassis prefix of YG2S8. Remember that the Morris Mini De Luxe Mk2 (sold as the Mini K and with boot badges saying Morris Mini 1100) was designated YG2S1; the Morris Mini Minor Mk2 (sold as the Mini 1100 and also with boot badges that said Morris Mini 1100) was YG2S3 and the Morris Cooper S (notably not called a Mini Cooper) was designated YG2S4.

This all seems rather pedantic, I know, but the question was asked and I merely offered up what I believed to be the correct answer. The evidence, though not proof, supports my statement that the Mini Clubman and Clubman GT were in fact Morris cars, though built by Leyland and sold as Minis.

The original question, though, was whether a 1973 Mini Clubman S was a Morris or a Leyland.

This comes down to the point I made about when the change-over took place from British Leyland Motor Corporation of Australia and Leyland Motor Corporation of Australia, and the debate whether it was December 1971, sometime in 1972 or March 1973, as I believed was the case, or whether there were two name changes.

I offered a number of facts, some of which may be open to question.

What is without doubt is that no car was sold as a Leyland Mini before April 1973, with the release of the Leyland Mini and Leyland Mini S.

Also of fairly high reliability, as I hope I have shown, is that at least from 1971 to 1972, Minis were listed as Morris, but sold as Minis, though the manufacturing parent company was Leyland.

An above question concerns the MGB, and my understanding is that although built at Zetland from 1968 to 1972 by Leyland, and fitted with Leyland badges on the wings (the MGB was also built at Enfield by Pressed Metal Corporation under license, from 1963 to 1968) they were always known as MGs in the engineering sections and sold as MGs - never as a Morris and never as a Leyland (in Australia). This is something I will be investigating further in the next few months, as we will feature the 50th anniversary of the MGB in Australia in Issue 4 of The BMC Experience. It will be interesting to see if and when the Leyland badges changed from British Leyland to Leyland Australia.

An important point, though, is that the MGB was only ever assembled in Australia from CKD, whereas the Mini by this time was assembled from locally-pressed panels with locally-assembled engines and most locally-sourced parts.

The Mini Clubman S was launched in March 1973 and within a month the Mini Clubman, and Mini 1100, and hydrolastic suspension, had been discontinued (the Clubman GT was discontinued in December 1972 or January 1973, with the last known cars shipped in January 1973), so the Mini range then consisted of only the Leyland Mini and the Leyland Mini S.

So, getting back to the original question from John Sneddon, a Mini S built in March 1973 was most likely a Mini Clubman S.

It was also possibly a Morris, but probably not a Leyland.

And that, my learned friends, is about as definitive as we can be about the car in question, without any concrete proof from the manufacturers.

I'm sure someone will have more to say on this subject, but I will not.

Cheers,
Watto.


and not forgetting that (as you say) this is only one form of evidence....the fact that Leyland chose to homologate ONLY 3 1200 series engines just means that they probably thought that that was good enough for that particular model at that particular time....maybe! :D

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 1:32 pm 
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John - some additional info from various publications. I hope it helps and not hinders. If you want a copy of the source documents just let me know.

The Mini Owners Instruction Manual TP828 version d (11/73) says: "Leyland Mini series first introduced February 1973" (see photo below).

Parts News issue NL137 dated February 1973 makes several references to the Mini Clubman, including a note about the Mini Clubman Parts Catalogue new edition dated December 1972.

Parts News issue NL138 dated March 1973 includes a reference to the availability of a supplement to the Trim Handbook for the Leyland Mini. I'll dig out my copy of the Trim Handbook to see if it adds anything.

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 Post subject: Model Name
PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 3:40 pm 
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Thanks Winabbey - you have confirmed exactly what I have believed with regards to Leyland Mini's including the intro of the Mini S coming into being from March 1973.

I note in Watto's first edition he illustrates two Leyland badges, I have a third which is oblong in shape with simply the "L" symbol and some scrolling around it, no text - any idea of the era for this badge?

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 6:02 pm 
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John - the following Trim Handbooks might also help you confirm your thoughts.
Note the October 1972 one refers to YDO21 as Morris Mini 1100 (the others are Mini Clubmans). Also, the March 1973 version (undated on the cover) calls the YDO22 a Leyland Mini - Super Mini. I've seen this reference to Super Mini elsewhere in early factory documentation.

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 7:15 pm 
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Well, there you go.

Just when I thought I had it all sussed out, along comes some proof to the contrary, so I stand corrected.

It would appear that the Leyland Minis were introduced in February 1973, not March 1973 as I had believed.

So, that means the Mini Clubman S, released in March 1973, was in fact a Leyland Mini Clubman S, and the Leyland Mini S was released in February 1973. No, wait, that can't be right.....

And yes, the S simply stands for Super, which is where the Super fits in.

And they wonder how we get confused.

Anyway, it would seem to confirm that the Clubman S was a Leyland.

Also, by omission, if the Leyland series Minis were released in February 1973, then the Minis before that must have been Morris, like the Morris Mini 1100, including the Clubman series - and Clubman GT, of course.

Or am I still missing something?

Cheers,
Watto.

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