The start of my restoration thread... As some of you may have read in other threads, my dad found out about a 1951 Morris Minor Lowlight in a friend's barn. Apparently it had been there for over 30 years after it failed an MOT and the owner couldn't afford to do the work at the time. I managed to acquire it and will attempt to get it back on the road...
She's remarkably complete, but has suffered a few knocks here and there. The car has a rough paint job currently but was grey originally. There's a fair amount of corrosion in the chassis and front wings and a big hole in the floor! The interior isn't half bad but unfortunately one of the front seats isn't original (very frustrating!).
It has a later engine fitted which is Austin badged (1098?) of unknown condition (no oil, rusty dipstick, etc). I also have the original sidevalve engine with gearbox and radiator but no manifold or carb on it. I've got a spare carb from a later engine but no manifold to fit the sidevalve.
My initial questions to the experts are:
- Do you think I should just recondition the 1098 engine and sell the sidevalve?
- I presume the sidevalve was removed for a reason - is there anything catastrophic I should look for when I open it up?
- Am I likely to be able to get hold of a manifold for it? Does anyone have one spare by any chance?
- Any good tips for chassis/bodywork jobs?
There's plenty of work to do on the chassis - at least one front leg and some nasty repairs needed to the sills, floor, etc but I'm game! Most panels except the front wings are in pretty solid condition considering. My challenge is to get it through an MOT - I don't have the funds to do a full restoration so it's going to be cosmetically 'basic', but I intend to keep it original as possible.
I'll attach relevant photos as I go, but in the meantime some here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7274876@N0 ... 920700133/
Toby
