Morris Minor Owners Club

I love this thread, year of my birth so quite special as I spent quite a few years down under!

Engine rebuild almost finished, New suspension legs being built up today with Poly bushes from ....you-know-who-that-isn't mentioned-round-here (I still owe him 25p for them, BTW) and the 260mm AP Racing front brakes and alloy hubs are nearly complete. Pics to follow after the F1 GP this afternoon.

Lovely Pics by the way-and great car in the making.

I've had a good guess -at your question of -who is the maked marauder ? I've Defo got it -but I cannot mention his name or it will /may get me into a heap of trouble.

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I ended up finding some paint of approximately the right grey and then added a bit of black to contrast components. Not entirely original but it keeps the engine from looking too gloomy.

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I'll need to change the adaptor plate. These 10.25 inch dia brake discs came originally from an ex- Formula Ford hillclimber and weigh almost nothing. The hubs, adaptor and calipers are alloy and the hubs are 4 inch PCD, like the Minor.

http://www.spritespot.com/gallery/view_ ... akes1a_001

http://www.spritespot.com/gallery/view_ ... yspridgets

Some of my previous toys.

I like the colour, very businesslike and won't show the dirt.

Isn't the original engine colour quite a pale grey?

Nice to see you take a day out and "relax" lol I'm guessing that is the Llandow track day.
Seem like Johnathan Heap of JLH minors can scare the bajeepers out of anyone in that souped up Moggy of his.
And the little fella clearly enjoyed himself also.

RobThomas wrote:[frame][/frame]
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-snip These 10.25 inch dia brake discs came originally from an ex- Formula Ford hillclimber -snip-
http://www.spritespot.com/gallery/view_ ... akes1a_001

Just being curious here, not critical, the car restoration looks to ber going great! Why are you fitting performance disc brakes to a side valve Minor? (Although having followed that exact car when Carlo met some of us years ago- it does drive surprisingly lively for a side valve engined car.)

Fair question.

The lowlight uprights were missing when I got the car and Carlo had fitted 7 inch 948 front brakes. I used these to keep out '52 saloon on the road so I needed some new front brakes. I had 2 sets of Marina brakes here plus lots of Midget bits and it was a case of picking the most suitable bits. Midget discs aren't much of an improvement over the 8 inch drums, the Riley 1.5 brakes I've got were all new components but a little on the big side, so, I've got a choice of Marina 4 inch or those FF 4 inch discs. The 260mm FF discs were too much for a road-going Lenham Midget so they've been sitting on the shelf ever since I took them off.
4-into-1 exhaust manifold, dual carbs, recurved ignition, high compression alloy head etc ought to make it a bit more lively.

I'm not doing anything that can't be changed back with a couple of spanners.

Sounds like a good philosophy.

There is a chap local to me who has a lowlight side valve but with the Alta overhead valve head. Apparrently that makes the car faster than a 1098 engined Minor!

I'd love to find an ALTA head but have never found one for sale.

Half done with the media blasting.[frame][/frame]

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Almost impossible to see where I replaced the bottom of the door hinge post and the front of the sill section round the front wheel arch. Hopefully finished, etched, primed and delivered back home by next week.
Costs £600.

What a lovely body shell! I've never seen an early body. Is there a difference in the front inner wheel arch? Is there a flange rather than straight down?

Body shell condition is just amazing!! I saw that car in its previous life and ownership. Love to see it when it is restored!

You did a superb job on the repair work if you can't see the join in bare metal!

Note the join at the rear 1/4 above the top of the rear wheel arch, that is lead body solder! All minor saloons/ convetibles have that soldered join.

Jaekl. The flange between the curved bit of the front arch and the vertical panel that forms the sidewall of the engine bay all comes out parallel to the tyre. In the later cars it angles downwards/inwards and has been known to cut tyres under heavy bouncing, hence the advice in the manuals to fold the lip away a bit. Not much else is different, really.

Chickenjohn. Thanks for the compliment! As for the lead, I've got a lead loading kit to finish off some minor dents in the bootlid that I couldn't pull out before blasting. There were some deep gouges in the rear side panel behind the door at sill height that couldn't be reached from the back so I made a slide hammer and pulled the dent mostly out with screws before welding up the holes. I'll re-lead the areas before the next coats of paint. There are quite a few extra lead areas on the screen pillars, screen top and at the bottom of the screen near the bonnet. No rust, though!!!

Sounds great! And I am pleased you are going with the original body solder filler. THE kit from Frost is quite good. I found lead loading nowhere near as hard as some people make out! Just have to be gentle with the blow torch and get the solder to a buttery consistency rather than melt it.

Are you going to paint the car yourself as well?? If it were my car, it would be refinished in its original colour and in cellulose paint.

Just stripped down our convertible to bare metal and found the lead join on the rear quarter. I wondered what it was - now I know

Sadly, the car belongs to 'er indoors. She wants Mist green but I have altered it to a light Landrover green (code HCD) cellulose in the hope that she won't notice. Easier to match it, you see. The original was obviouslt dark Romain green but the whole car was this light green when we got it so she wanted something similar. I'm happy to do any mods that can be changed back in the future but nothing permanent to such a rare vehicle.

This colour. (Click the light green tab in the middle of the colours)
http://www.paintman.co.uk/paint-colour- ... ies-1.html

Its coming along nicely Rob and should compliment the Lenham nicely with a fraction less performance