Wow. 

REALLY !!!!! Who are these THEY people you speak of ??????? More trolls or you tube "guru's" you seem to hold in high esteem ?

I'm getting the original rubber cone,and i will use the trumpet that i have right now, i don't want to buy that hi lo's thing anymore., they say driving the mini with hi lo will make the handling so squishy.

I'm just worried that if i install a $150 worth of Moulton cones, and after a month of driving it goes flat again, remember, the weight of the front of the mini is 333lbs(that's according to mr. Thorpe) one side and 666lbs on both sides.  and also , you have to take into consideration that the 666lbs pressure is being applied upon the 2 cones 24hrs a day and 7 days a week, even when the car is parked inside the garage, i mean it will get flat in no time, i was just laughing when jeremy thorpe said that the mouten will last 15years , or pushing 20years. i'm like, really???? having that pressure applied to it all day all night??????   gash-dam!!

Remember, you can't just take a bolt and keep screwing it in. The tip of the bolt would just go through the cone and damage the trumpet or go down inside it. keeping you from getting it out. The tool (bolt) must be threaded into cone only about 20-25mm and then PULLED upward. Then you need room inside or above the engine bay to swing a long wrench.

The old cone is hard as rock and compressed, but you might have to pull it up 1" to 2", IF it separates from the trumpet. They do get stuck together very hard and do not come apart without damaging one or both, sometimes never.  so you will need enough room to get the knuckle out of its seat at the very least. It to may be seized on the trumpet.
You have to have a tool strong enough to withstand pulling with that force AND having you banging, prying and using all your bad words down in the tight confines of the subframe tower. If your tool comes apart. so will any fingers you have in there.
So far, figure on 30 minutes to 1 hour, each side. Not 30 seconds.

The new cone is a different matter. it is more compliant (softer), but it is full size. You have to compress it more, maybe 3" to 4". That takes a lot more winding - figure on about 5 minutes each, to start. Then you can put in your nice clean trumpet and nice new knuckle joint, into your nice clean upper arm with new bearings and shaft. The tool must hold while you do all this or you'll lose what fingers you have left.

Use cheap ideas and lose your fingers. You may have to change your screen name - it is hard to to pull a trigger with no fingers. Then again, maybe not, because typing will be impossible without any fingers.

Buy the tool.

The Bible also says not to use the name of your Lord in vain... no matter how you spell it ("gawd" "gadam" etc.)
Just sayin'

Hahaha sir Dan, i can assure you, i can be trusted. But im not into borrowing material things, i want to borrow ideas which i use to immitate things from. 


Bible says, Love unconditionally.

Nobody's gonna lend you anything until you start being less paranoid and start telling us where you live (generally) and communicating more openly, like filling in your profile and opening it up a bit. I would lend you mine IF I knew who you really are, where you lived, and if I could trust you to return it as soon as you were done. 
But it wouldn't be practical anyway - I'm in Canada and the freight, import/export costs etc would be more than the tool.

Thanks sir jeg,, if theres somebody who lives closer and who's willing to lend their compressor id apreciate it, i mean same here, i have a clutch housing remover bought it for 50 bucks, im willing to lend if anyone needs it, preferably around the US. 

Edit - have you even taken your old rubber cones out yet? 


In Vizard's classic 'How to Modify Your Mini', he provides a dimensional drawing for the cone compressor tool, should you choose to build your own.  Of course, David Vizard is only an ASE certified engineer, you're a shade-tree scooter jockey. 

So, yeah, go ahead nipple-boy, use some bathroom caulk to attach a bit of wheelbarrow tire to you rubber cone, re-invent the wheel and let us know how it turns out...  

Take some pics too, maybe you can inspire someone to take the same shortcut.


Borrowing the proper tool won't cost anything but the cost of postage.  Dan has one, I have one, I'm sure someone else has one also.  Maybe if you ask, someone will offer to let you use theirs - you'd need to return it of course...

Just as I suspected trigger troll. Just as I suspected...

The only main purpose of the cone compressor is to pull the donut upward to give enough space for the trumphet to squeeze in and also the upper arm to get bolted on the frame, how long should i hold the cone compressed? maybe what,30 seconds??, and how far should i pull it? what,2inches?  easy pissy!   there are tons of long grade 5 bolt at home depot, i have a 90amps welder from HF. 
And also, the cut rubber tire concept that i presented to you guys the other day might actually work, for the record, i will not just put the rubber pad in between the trumpet and the cone, i will actually make a little grove to where the tip of the trumpet will sit and also the cone on the other side, and shall be put together with silicon rubber sealer to make it stay in place and not fall apart.

but I'm still thinking, got a little busy at work today. 

PS.  this thread name hurts me every time I see it. I swore off donuts about 4-5 years ago when I was "awarded" two stents in my heart. But I can still smell a Tim Horton's old-fashioned plain (my favourite) at better than 60 feet! Coffee just ain't the same without it.

Sigh... me too. I just hope he doesn't kill himself when it comes apart, bounces off the ceiling and comes down like a crossbow bolt into his head. (... his next name "Bolt-head"?)

Time for afternoon coffee!

My experience of all thread from the hardware store is it's best described as putty steel. I personally wouldn't use it for this job. If I was in a pinch, I'd find a grade 5 bolt, weld a piece of round bar/tube to the head, and weld another larger fine-thread bolt to the other end of the bar (to use as the compressor). And I'm a pretty good welder... All said, the real deal tool sounds better all the time. 

I have a real feeling Tony is not going to surprise us, and that he will indeed continue to bodge and justify. We'll see. 

Thanks, minimans!
Even high strength, finely machined steel components will fail when overloaded. My brother drove concrete mixers. On one of his early jobs. he was backing up a sandy rise. The back tandem axle did a wheel hop. When it stopped, the splined end of the inter-axle driveshaft was broken and the splines twisted like that stringy cheese. Quite a souvenir for a wasted work day.

One of my mottos: "Buy a good tool and you buy it once. Buy a cheap tool and buy it over and over again." 
My cone compressor is here on my office desk, all nice and clean, ready to be used in another 5 or 10 years.  Still a bargain.

Dan that was one hell of a good post! As a mechanic and fabricator of over 45 years I have learned two things, the value of good tools and the fact that you will never get a non professional to understand that value has nothing to do with cost!
$120 bucks for a tool? How much for an emergency room visit? Or that paint job when your all thread snaps like a twig..........

trigger boy boy there's a difference between a "fabricator" and a bodger..............

Tony:

The Cone compressor has many parts. The assembled length is about 460mm. (Whatever that is in your other picture is cute, but useless.)

1. The base is a hollow heavy duty steel pipe 17mm inside diameter, 25mm outside diameter 212mm tall, threaded/welded into a 25 mm hole in the base plate 100mm long by 38mm wide x 8mm thick. Overall height is 220mm. It must stick up higher than the fender to allow room to turn the levers under high tension.

The central Core is in 2 sections:

2. The upper threaded pulling part is about 270mm long x 15mm outside diameter. It is hardened steel, not stock threaded rod. At the top is a smaller T-handle is 125mm long and 7mm in diameter + the knobs on each end. The threaded section is 190mm long (the pulling length), with the thread O.D. of 15mm and the I.D about 12.5mm. The bottom 50mm is threaded on the inside only - approx 10mm diameter to receive the lower part of the core. Permanently assembled on the pulling section is the cast winding handle: it is about 170mm long with 12mm dia wings. Its hub is about 27mm thick x 35mm diameter and has a steel thrust washer cast into the bottom to ride on the outer shell pipe. It needs to be smooth, hard and greased, or you won't be able to turn it.
3. The lower part of the core is 220mm long 13mm thick and made of hardened steel. It comes in two types "Metric" and "Unified" (Imperial thread). The bottom end consists of a 5mm high x 10.5mm conical point on a smooth 9.5mm x 6mm long guide shaft that helps centre and align the core into the dirty, crusty thread in the suspension cone waaaaaay down in the subframe tower. The next threaded section is threaded "metric" or "unified" depending on the age of your cones. These are raised threads. If you use and force the wrong one, you end up destroying the thread in the cone, making the job much harder.) There are three thread cleaning slots cut into the tip and thread - to clean the rubber cone threads. (The "unified" tip only has 2 cleaning slots.)    The top section is reduced to about 9.5mm for 33mm and is fine-threaded to go into the upper threaded pulling part (2 above). The important thing here is the lock nut - it must be tight or you risk it coming apart inside your suspension tower when you are releasing tension on the new cone. The lock nut must also fit down the outer core.

This is a big, heavy-duty, strong SAFE tool that is worth every penny. Much cheaper than when a home-made one snaps or crumples and takes out your windshield (the bonnet must be removed to do this work) or a piece of your head. 

These need to be strong. I found it hard work to turn the proper tool once you get to full cone compression. Jeg is right - 3 to 1 on the front,meaning the front spring actually holds 3x the force the tire does. So if your front tire at rest supports about 400 pounds, the spring pressure at rest is about 1200 pounds. But you must wind it to almost full compression, so the forces get huge. What is the tensile strength of hardware-store threaded rod? Doubtful. 

Whatever that is in your other picture is cute, but useless.

Steve, I just checked my disintegrating copy of Vizard's HtMYM, and Calver's 'Lowering the Dry Suspension' article; the front ratio is generally accepted as 3:1.  The rear is 5:1.  

Lots of craziness and misinformation here.  trumpet to wheel ratio is 5 to 1, not 3 to one,  a 3/16 washer will change ride height about an inch.
  The coil overs, aside from the cost of the well matched sets, also increase travel, unless you use a well matched progressive coil. Increased travel means ride height must be increased.  Don't care much about cornering, then go for it.  The upper brackets are strong enough; after all, big bumps will be absorbed by the bump stops.
  A one inch thick piece of tire rubber on top of the trumpets?  REALLY!  That's ridiculous on several counts, I have to think he is just trolling you guys.
The spring compressor is actually something that he might be able to make himself;  Like most of us have.  A piece of all-thread from the hardware store and some nuts and washers, for about 5$.  Just remember that there are two different thread sizes used according to what model year the cone springs were made for; (Standard for early cars or Metric for later).
  Cutting the tip off of the bump stop is not going to help him much....the tip, being of the smallest cross section, has the softest rate and just softens the lead into the thicker portion which is doing 90% of the work. The suspension will still arrest at about the same point as before the cut, with little difference noticed in ride quality.  If he cuts too much off or removes the stops completely, the high suspension angularity will become an issue....ball joint and cv joint bind, and/or tire/wheel interference and alignment issues to name a few possibilities.  Then Replacing the bump stops is usually a real bugger of a job.