Hydrolastic Colour Coding

[mk1]

What is the colour coding across the range of hydro displacers?

I know Red & Silver, but other than that they are a bit of a mystery to me.

[12g295]

Early cars pre 68

Normal front – no marking part no 21A 1477
rear - no marking part no 21A 1703

Stiff front and rear 1 Yellow band part no C-21A 1705

Hard front 1 Red band part no C-21A 1819
Hard rear 2 Red bands part no C21A 1821

Late cars post 68

Normal front and rear 1 orange or green band part no 21A 1804

Stiff front and rear 2 orange bands part no 21A 1811

Hard front 1 Blue or silver band part no 21A 1872
Hard rear 2 Blue or silver bands part no 21A 1874

[mk1]

Thanks very much.

[Austin Cooper]

Someone on the MCR has made a really decent list of them. There is a link to it in the 9th post of this topic http://forum.minicooper.org/showthread.php?t=9464

[Mini4Ever]

That very same list is even in Mark's main pages: https://mk1-performance-conversions.co. ... _units.pdf

[mk1]

Ha, ha, even I can't be expected to remember everything that's on the MK1 site. It currently runs to just over 1.3Gb

[LMM76C]

The "Blue" units seem to have been available as early as late 1966? I know of a private 998 Cooper used on the 66 RAC that went to Abingdon to have comp units fitted and blue was the colour mentioned. By January 1969, when i bought them (and probably much earlier in 1968), silver was available across the counter at BL dealers as the hard competition units. Prior to the 66 Monte, the Gp1 works cars were being prepared with red competition units, according to Stuart Turner.
Certainly the matches std/comp were
Unmarked or yellow/red
orange/blue
green/silver

[Ronnie]

I think that the red (competition) units were the same rating as the silver (std S) displacer, but they had a .150" or .180" spacer built in to raise the suspension.

[Will Grant]

I think blue units came in from midish (6/7?) 66.

[formulaphoto]

Early cars pre 68

Normal front – no marking part no 21A 1477
rear - no marking part no 21A 1703

Er.... are rear displacers physically different from front displacers? I think I've just put four units of the same part no back into my subframes!

W

[66S]

Hi Warwick,
As far as I know, the only external difference is the distance at the hose end from the top ledge down to the diaphragm. Cooper S displacers are 5/8" to 3/4" and regulars are 7/8" to 15/16". This seems to because there is extra rubber (strength) in the Cooper S ones, meaning firmer action.
Some numbers were used front and rear, some had different displacer numbers front to rear.

Regards
Al