Morris Minor Owners Club

Ghastly day in damp cold fitting interior including two new gloveboxes. Cut myself repeatedly and had to clean blood off the brand new gloveboxes. New gloveboxes are awful things to fit. Old ones have taken the shape of the aperture and are easier to fit.

It's very odd how the drivers side glovebox protrudes through the aperture but the passenger side one goes under the lip of the aperture. Thankfully I still have 4 rusty clips on the drivers side because the clips ESM sent are only suitable for the passenger side where the clips are attached to the glovebox rather than the car. Even then, I found the clips would only seat properly if tapped on carefully with a light hammer.


Driver's side glovebox. Rusty spire clip attached to the lip of the aperture. This is the correct type of clip. Next to it a new "glovebox clip" from ESM. This is not deep enough for the driver's side and is designed to be attached to the material of the passenger's side. Glovebox protrudes through the aperture and is then hidden by the surround. A handy very stubby screwdriver for jobs like these.



Tapping a passenger side glovebox clip into place.

Set of mini stubby screwdrivers. Useful!



Driver's side done. Too cold now. Passenger's side tomorrow.

In case anybody is wondering what the black wire is in one of the photos, it is splitter lead to the indicator lamps for hazard use. The lead splits the output from a 2 pin flasher relay and after the split there is a diode in each lead. The diodes prevent the normal indicator switch from interfering with the hazards. The hazard switch is a simple pull for on switch with a light in the switch knob that illuminates when the hazards are on. In addition, another lead with a diode in it (light green) goes to the pilot lamp on the indicator stalk so that this flashes when the hazards are on. The relay is a 2 pin Lucas SFB130 (thermal) that makes the correct tick tock. It is rated at 4x21w+5w and was often used in those 1960's classics that actually had hazard lights as standard. The relay is mounted in a relay mount under the dashboard and completely hidden by the reinforcing arch (only in Tourers). The relay mount means that the relay can be changed quickly and easily without any need for the dreaded removal of the driver's side glovebox. I loathe the job because the steering wheel has to come off, the indicator assembly, the outer steering column has to be rotated (otherwise the indicator shroud mountings foul the removal of the glovebox surround panel and after all of that the indicators have to be set up again to self-cancel properly because the outer steering column has been disturbed. No way I want 2 hours work to change a relay! Also there's always the risk of breaking the horn push which has happened to me before. There's very little space for a switch under the dashboard in a Tourer. An off the shelf hazard switch such as Lucas SFB300 will not fit.

Less tired and less cold and now the passenger side glovebox is in.

If doing this job remember there is a big hole under the glovebox so you can reach under and pull the glovebox forwards. The little rubber lid bump stops are available from ESM (they are used on the driver's side as well, 4 required per car).

Just a tip from my own experience. Before fitting a new glovebox make absolutely sure that gaskets on the body (e.g. wiper bezels, bonnet hinges etc) are in good order or otherwise your new glovebox liner will swiftly be ruined by water. This happened to me!

Also, the gloveboxes are easily marked so have clean hands. I think gloves can too easily pick up dirt that you don't notice so better with clean bare hands.

Be careful with heater hoses to the demist vents (if fitted) as these are easily dislodged. Test all of the electric switches, dashboard lights etc. before and after. Disconnect battery whilst fitting gloveboxes.

Phil,

Very grateful for your advice regarding grit getting into the scroll. It HAS got into the scroll and so this extra work (which naturally enough I was not keen to do) was absolutely essential.

The old front cover has the standard scroll but I have another front cover which has been adapted to a lip oil seal. I found a number of shims behind the front plate on top of the front bearing. My question now is, how do I determine which/how many shims to put back bearing in mind I am putting on a different front cover?

Stephen

Standard scroll front gearbox cover (1098cc)



Grit has got in here..........


Shims



Modified front cover with lip seal

Shims back and held in position with grease.

I put the shims in the old end cover then measured the clearance to the flat face of the cover. Then compared to the new one. As far as I could ascertain, no difference so I put the shims back as they were. I have to assume that they were correct to start with of course!

Gearbox refilled. No leaks evident. Input shaft turns freely. It was grinding horribly with the grit in the end cover!

Thanks to Philthehill gearbox saved!

Stephen

Well done

philthehill wrote: ↑Sun Mar 16, 2025 3:55 pm Well done

Thank you.

I'm very pleased.


Stephen

Back to the front brakes this morning. A bit more to it than just the brakes. As I have to take the hubs off to swap the brake back plates I am going to renew the bearing oil seals and wash out with petrol and repack the bearings. I also need to clean up where grit has stuck to old grease on the suspension and while I am right there, grease gun to all the grease nipples ensuring of course that no dirty gritty grease gets in with fresh grease. Then on to the rear brakes. Inspection of the back brakes suggests there is a slow weep of axle oil on both sides which is collecting brake dust and making a mess. Although I wasn't really intending to swap the rear brakes for Wolseley 1500 at the same time as the front, if I have to take out the half shafts to do the gasket and O-ring then I am nearly there so I may as well swap the brake back plates as well. I'll renew the rear bearing oil seals too.

Stephen

Engine is coming back from rebuild on Monday and the following weekend I will reinstall it.

The diagnosis from the engine rebuilder was that it was a very tired engine but worn evenly everywhere rather than having any drastic issues. It has been rebored to +20 and rebuilt to a very high standard so I hope that there will be no engine issues for many years to come. When I consider that the engine has never had major work in 56 years this is not bad going!

I am looking forward to MoT in France without the need for an oil tanker following us as was the case in Holland last year. I hardly had the room to carry so much oil.

It will also be quite nice to go faster than 50 mph without fear that the engine is going to disintegrate.

It has seemed like an eternity with the engine gone for 3 months but the absolute marathon of jobs on the car will hopefully ensure reliability of much more than just the engine.

Stephen

Taking stock today of what I've done. Looked at before and after photos of the engine bay and it's hard to believe it was so bad! Making a checklist of tasks that must be done when reinstalling the engine.

Jobs done:

1) Engine removed via front panel off method
2) Engine bay completely stripped of all components
3) Gloveboxes out, loom stripped from behind dashboard, heater removed
4) Car sent away for blasting and painting
5) While car was away rebuilt Lucas DR3a wiper motor, Lucas 9H horn, rebuilt 2x SU AUA66 fuel pumps, refurbished Wolseley 1500 9" front brake set
6) Car returned. Installed loom. Improved Hazard light system.
7) Reinstalled engine bay contents, had original radiator re-cored.
8 Front brakes, Installed 9" Wolseley backplates with new Wolseley cylinders, replaced bearings (Timken) and hub oil seals both sides
9) Back brakes, removed and refurbished back plates, unblocked axle flange oil drain holes, replaced hub oil lip seals and bearings (Fag bearings), replaced half-shaft flange O-rings and gaskets of the correct thickness, new Delphi-Lockeed cylinders, refilled diff.
10) 3 new flexible brake hoses. Adjusted and bled braking system, adjusted handbrake travel
11) Replaced sealed beam headlights with Wipac Quadoptic halogen
12) Cleaned out and adjusted wiper rack, wheel boxes, wiper self-park
13) Reinstalled heater with new air duct hoses (heater previously refurbished)
14) Drained gearbox oil and replaced front plate with scroll with front plate with oil lip seal.
15) New larger battery installed. Electrics tested
16) Greased trunnions upper and lower, handbrake cables, prop shaft (sealed type track rod ends, no grease nipples)
17) Re-installed gloveboxes, adjusted indicator self-cancel
18) Installed new clutch pedal draft excluder pad
19) Fitted new gearbox steady cable

Probably more that I can't even remember. It would have been so much easier with a helper!

Of course the list might not seem like that much but I am only an amateur with restricted space in a small garage and some of the jobs I have never done before. So in between reading how to do things, losing tools and parts repeatedly, getting up and down off the floor a ridiculous number of times and then worrying whether it had done things correctly so checking them again it all took rather a long time. Added to this, it was absolutely freezing in the garage most of the time and so I could only tolerate a few hours until I was too cold to carry on. There was also the annoyance which many, many owners suffer of finding that parts are either not quite right, poor quality or just plain wrong and that adds a lot of time and frustration. Crazy as it sounds, if I were ever rich I would not want to pay someone to do the jobs for me but I would want to pay an expert to do the jobs with me. Then at least the tasks would probably only need to be done once rather than twice or three times!


Stephen

Before


Now

Small job to do, cut some 3mm nitrile rubber sheet to line bottom of battery box. Rubber on order. Back of battery box is the original covering reused.

On an absolute beautiful warm Spring day I am reluctantly going to venture under the car to fit a new fuel pipe to the tank. The old one got rather bent and suffered a kink that has restricted the pipe. I have a new Automec Kunifer pipe which already has flares and fittings at either end. I also have benders for 1/4" pipe. I have noted the pipe route which looks fairly straightforward and the areas where there is flexible fuel hose over the metal pipe to protect against chafing. Obviously I can't feed the metal pipe through the flexible hose when there are fittings soldered on but I can slit the flexible pipe along its length and secure with cable ties. I still haven't cured the stink of petrol from the tank (a problem for several years). It was a new Heritage tank about 3 years ago and I have tried different filler hoses (including silicone), different clips and refitted the sender gasket several times. Whilst working under the car during this period of restoration I noticed that the smell of fuel may well be coming from the join to the metal pipe that goes from tank to engine bay.

Stephen

What a transformation of the engine bay! Looks fantastic, Stephen, and a lot of work. Well done!

myoldjalopy wrote: ↑Sat Mar 29, 2025 9:09 am What a transformation of the engine bay! Looks fantastic, Stephen, and a lot of work. Well done!

Thank you very much. At this stage I just want to be out motoring in the sunshine!

Stephen

Your timings are pretty good though Stephen, the car should be ready for the road just as the weather improves. Working on the car in the cold of winter isn't great but I'm sure running the engine in during a warm sunny spring will make it all worthwhile.