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If you have a classic Mini with hydrolastic (wet) suspension it’s a good idea to fit these bump stops, even if you’re not planning to take your car to the race track. They considerably reduce the front to back pitching that these cars are well known for. Also, any hydrolastic displacer is undoubtedly not going to be as good as it was 50 plus years ago, so these bump stops will help take some of the strain on them.
As part of the restoration of my very standard MK2 Mini Cooper S, I have decided fit a new set these. I had installed a some of these to this car 30 years ago but the brackets had rusted and the rubber perished, so a new set was needed. I remember back then that the rubber parts were not too difficult to fit to the brackets.
The original rubber parts were barrel shaped, a different shape from the current version. The latest type seem firmer and more solid around the mounting hole. This may mean that they are more effective and longer lasting, I don’t know. It does however mean that they are quite difficult to mount onto their metal brackets.
I didn’t manage to fit them by hand, so I gave the problem some thought and came up with a simple tool to do the job, as shown in this video.
Prior to fitting the rubbers, I had stripped off the paint the metal parts came with, primed and painted them with a very tough, smooth anti corrosion paint. I used silicon grease as a lubricant as it's harmless to both the rubber and the paint. I imagine red rubber grease would have been just as affective.