to buy or not to buy, what would you do?

[Budgie]

Just thought I'd place this question to the forum and see what the feed back is. I may be tempted to go and see a four door minor soon but the only thing that's putting me off is the fact that it was only re sprayed last year ! The seller has numerous "restoration "photos with a bare metal engine bay repaint .So my question is how many of you folks would buy a car that had been repainted recently, my reason for asking is that is a year or less too soon to buy in case any possible rust may appear later on after purchase. I bought my tourer some years ago knowing it had been repainted some four / five years previously so I new that if anything bad was going to show through then it would have by the time I bought her and eight years on she still looks as good as the day I bought her. Also what are your thought's on the 948 cc engine which she has in her i.e under powered? One more thing, would two new floor pans again put people off? [they seem to be well done in the photo]!

[morris van]

My 1971 van had a re spray in the mid 1990s and my van stays outside as there is no room in my garage as there's 2 cars in there. I have got 2 little rust spots on the front wings and one on the rear wheel arch and I am in the process of getting it repaired. The previous owner fitted another engine which is a 948cc and goes where I want it to.

[simmitc]

The easy bit is the 948 engine. A sweet unit and arguably the best of the bunch. More than adequate for most use, although of course it does depend upon the conditiopn of the engine.

Rust could come through at any time. If the panels have been fitted well, all gaps are good, seams neat, and the shell solid then the only thing to check is with a magnet to make sure that the paint is not hiding too much filler.

[ManyMinors]

It all depends on the price of course but if the seller has lots of restoration photographs then these probably show the extent of repairs and preparation carried out? Were all the wings removed to deal with the usual rust hidden around the seams? Was also the glass, brightwork, lights etc removed? Or was the car simply "blown over" with a quick, cheap coat of paint. If you're looking for a very smart car it is almost bound to have been resprayed at some time. The only alternative is to buy a project and have the work carried out to your chosen standard. This will always be expensive but it does allow some control of the work being done. In theory anyway.

When you inspect the car, take a torch with you and pay particular attention to the underside of all doors and wings and the edges of panels where rust tends to start. This is in addition to the car's structural condition of course....

As for the 948cc engine, I personally think that the 948 cars are the nicest of all to drive and own. The performance (of a good one!) is only slightly less than the later 1098cc cars. I have used both as daily drivers and there really isn't THAT much difference. For me, condition would be the deciding factor rather than engine size.

Go and have a look. What can you loose?

[les]

Regarding the floor pans, you'll be lucky to find a car of that age without welding, unfortunately. Unless you buy a wreck and do the work yourself, it's a gamble. However look to see if the welds are neat, it shows the mentality of the welder, in other words he cares! Respray issue, again, check the finish.

[bmcecosse]

Look in the door shuts - pull off the door seals - is it painted all over? Or just a 'blow over' ....?

[ASL642]

Check that the rear wings were painted off the car. If it has been resprayed whilst on the car the wing piping with be painted too. In this case if in future you need to remove a wing for maintenance, the paintwork will be damaged.

[Budgie]

Thanks for all the replies. In all fairness the car is pictured in stages with it being totally stripped down to a bare shell so the paint is everywhere where it should be it's just the amount of welding that's putting me off ....or should it? As for the engine size , well from the comments that area seems to bode well with me now so I suppose a visit to view in detail is the best way forward now, just shame about the large welded areas!

[bmcecosse]

Better than large rusty areas - shurely Bond ?

[crackers]

Rust fully cut out and repaired properly is better than poorly repaired or rust not completely removed.

In other words, it's not the amount of welding you need to look at, but how well it was done and what was left.

[tanyadavidson30]

just buy it you cant go rong due to the work already done chap that it is

[les]

just buy it you cant go rong due to the work already done chap that it is

Of course you can go wrong, as mentioned, it's the quality of what's been done, rather than the amount!

[tanyadavidson30]

most moggys are rough and ready anyway all u need to do if fix em lol

[les]

That comment doesn't seem to follow what we're discussing.

[Stuartandsue]

Hi the people on this site are very good at spotting things, what I would do if it were me is go and look ,get a feel for it and take some pics of important areas then post them on here and see what people think...

See what its like or take someone with you who knows Minors...

I have a (slight) advantage being a motor technician and ex MOT tester by trade but I have learned so much from this forum...

We looked at a few convertibles for around the 6k mark but the ones we saw had pitted chrome, poor bodywork, rust in dodgy places etc we would have had to do a lot of work on them to get them right.. for an extra 2k we got something really nice (but not all original).

We just bought a lovely Convertible after following advice on this forum... we nearly paid a lot more too but if the cars weren't local and I couldn't look myself I posted the links to the ads on my thread... anyway after people looked at the pics for us they put us off the bad (sorry I mean too expensive for the money) ones...

Ours has had a fairly recent respray too in last few years but it looks like a semi professional job was done, the paint almost looks like enamel on it, I did see one that had had a cheap respray/blowover and the paint had a real bad "orange peel" effect when you looked closely, all little dimples in it etc.