1957 MM Barn Find

[jaekl]

This being a 1957, the fan, crank pulley and sump may be red. My 57 did. Also notice the less green and more grey engine colour. I believe there still was some differences between Austin and Morris engines including the numbering and colour.

[geoberni]

This being a 1957, the fan, crank pulley and sump may be red. My 57 did. Also notice the less green and more grey engine colour. I believe there still was some differences between Austin and Morris engines including the numbering and colour.

I did think that about the Fan Boss, but it seemed the same as the splodge on the Rocker Cover, which seems to be the Blue/Grey colour of some engines.
This pair of photos from Original Morris Minor illustrates some of the colour differences on the SII 803 engines...
LH one has the optional Oil Bath Filter of the export cars, whether that affects the engine colour choice I have not a scoobie ....

20241129_142555.jpg (1.04 MiB) Viewed 9474 times

[MsRose]

No, its definitely some kind of paint.



You can see the pipe that comes from the oil bath to the rocker cover, covered in that awful paint.

[philthehill]

Smear the gaskets with general purpose grease before fitting do not soak in oil.

[geoberni]

Strange.
It couldn't perhaps be a hose of some red/orange rubber-like material that has degraded over the decades and become a soft squishy substance.

I've seen that occur with some rubber type gaskets on old equipment from the '50s/60s. They turned into soft mush.
Heaven knows what would happen if such material was also subject to hot oil contamination during it's use.

[geoberni]

Smear the gaskets with general purpose grease before fitting do not soak in oil.

I get mixed up with which are greased and which are oil soaked... I just know not to put Hylomar over everything...

[philthehill]

Grease the engine gaskets and soak the cork seals of the sump in oil overnight.

[geoberni]

Grease the engine gaskets and soak the cork seals of the sump in oil overnight.

[MsRose]

An update from my Facebook page.

Day 7: News from the engineer on the engine, I start stripping bodywork, the carburetor has gone to Dad for overhaul and I'm giving a shout out to the one negative follower on here that states that Muriel will never run again.
Another day away from work and spending time with Muriel. I'm conscious that Bootsie desperately needs some work done on him before my adventures next year, but with being let down on the unit and, having to try and get a major part of Muriel up and running again, I know I need to keep going on whichever vehicle I can at the time.
The day started with opening the container door and being greeted by that happy, smiley appearance that Muriel gives, but before i started, it was time for some news from the engineer regarding her engine. The block had been pronounced good, but will require skimming and a rebore to +60. The pistons were scrap as I already knew, so I'll need to order +60 pistons. The conrods had also been checked and are good.
The crank was good for another regrind.
The rocker shaft has failed and will need a replacement and the valves are seized into the cylinder head, so looking at a replacement cylinder head, converted to run on unleaded.
Mark at Absolute Engines is now going ahead with the skim and rebore. After that, he'll call me and go through everything that needs replacing at his end. I can also now start ordering replacement parts needed at my end too.
I've sent the carburetor to my Dad as it's not something I'm confident with stripping and Dads' a bit of a whizz with them. So far he's reported a fair bit of wear and I'll need to order replacement parts.
The weather was poor and I had to work inside the container, meaning I was a little restricted, but managed to clean up and check the tie plates in the engine bay and get the passenger front wing off, uncovering rot, which I knew was there anyway.
Realistically, I won't get all the parts for the engine build in time for the Christmas holiday, so I'll try and get the other three wings removed, along with the front and rear doors., boot lid, front and rear windscreen engine bay stripped and the back seat before jetwashing the whole car down and de greasing the engine bay.
Some pictures below (which may look a little depressing) which aren't the most exciting.
Something I never normally do, but I have one very negative follower who states "that bag of cr£p will never run again" and I wanted to give a big shoutout to that person and tell them how very sorry I feel for them, clearly lacking any kind of drive or determination in their own life.
As always, thank you to all those of you who read, support, chat to me by PM or face to face about Muriel and my adventures with Bootsie. I always appreciate it.

[myoldjalopy]

Never mind the nay-sayers, you're doing good work and Muriel will be a fantastic car when finished!

[Chief]

We have one small issue with the thread, Facebook are invalidating the image urls after a time limit has passed, so only the latest few images can be seen (and even then, in my case, I have to right click the word 'image' and open it in a new tab for them to show up).

Apart (strangely) from the very first image in the very first post which loads as expected and is still a valid url, all others before the latest post all give an "Url Signature Expired" message from facebook when attempting to view them.

[MsRose]

Day 8: Stripping bodywork, lodgers permanently evicted and an update on Muriel's journey sixty odd years ago!
I really don't have much that may interest you all, unless any of you are obsessed with bodywork and rot patches.
I started removing parts from the engine bay whilst I was waiting for some help to get Muriel our of the container. I didn't want to start removing any of the cables and loom that went to the binnacle as I'll do this over Christmas. I felt fine until I took off the fuel pump and the smell of gone off (some 47 years) fuel hit me.......couldn't even face a cuppa for an hour! Help arrived and Muriel was pushed down the ramps and rolled outside. This meant the doors could be opened wide enough for removal. The fixings for the check straps came undone easily enough, but I did need help with the door bolts as they were solid and even gave an experienced technician a little bit of grief (which made me feel slightly better about myself).
Once all four doors were off I removed the back seat and, unsurprisingly, found out that Muriel had had a fair few four legged lodgers over the years and they'd made a real mess.
Lodgers evicted and nests thrown in the bin, I turned to giving the floor a better going over with the wire brush. Pretty much all solid, just a little patch towards the back seat and a bigger patch in the 'lodgers' area (under the back seat).
I did have a go at taking off the driver's front wing, but the car was fairly low to the floor at the front and trying to maintain a crumpled up position, trying to undo bolts that didn't want to part from their current home wasn't the easiest, so I left it.
Whilst working on the interior, I removed some of the small pieces of trim to see if they would clean up. They haven't come up very well, so I'll aim to recover them as they're just thin pieces of wood with some kind of vinyl covering.
By the end of the day all four doors were removed, the boot lid unwired and re moved, back seat removed, a few parts from the engine bay removed and a good wire brushing of the floor inside was done. All the panels were packed in the container, then Muriel and her gearbox were put back in.
Just to add something different to bodywork. I managed to trace where Muriel went after being despatched to Caffyn's in September 1957. The kind people from the Morris Minor Club traced East Kent Motors Ltd: Queen Street, Deal (1935) for me as they no longer exist and, weren't found on Companies House. Muriel would have been shipped to a main dealer (Caffyn's) and then, a smaller outfit, Eask Kent Motors Ltd would have purchased her as stock for sale. I've added a picture of the garage below. I'm not sure I'll find any other history from this point, but who knows?
So, I have one more Wednesday off work and will use that day and Christmas holidays to try and completely strip everything else off Muriel so that the welding work can be assessed. I'm pretty sure there are more surprises to uncover, but like some of you said, it will get worse before it gets better!

[ManyMinors]

Great to see your progress. The car seems a lot more structurally sound than many "restoration project" Morris Minors. I reckon you have done well!
DO make sure that you take lots of photographs and that you carefully keep every screw, nut, bot , clip and washer safe and in labelled bags, boxes or similar. You'll never remember where everything came from otherwise. Personally I would caution against taking a car completely to pieces in one go and would suggest repairing one quarter of a car at a time perhaps, but it has all got to be done eventually.
Keep EVERYTHING. Don't throw any part of the car away at this stage. Some parts are very difficult to obtain now.

Good luck. It'll make a grand car one day but it will be a long journey.

[myoldjalopy]

Regarding your vinyl trim, before going for re-covering you might like to consider re-painting them. I have successfully done this in the past with incredible results. I can't remember exactly where I got the paint but this looks very similar:https://www.kolorbond.co.uk/vinylkote-p ... her-vinyl/
If you can find a fold of unfaded vinyl somewhere on the car (I think I took a piece from under one of the seats) they can match the colour for you.

[ManyMinors]

Vinylcote is well worth a try. I haven't used it myself but know one or two owners who have and the results were impressive. When I restored a similar coloured car I found it impossible to acquire material of the correct colour (Newton Commercial couldn't help) so options are limited.

[MsRose]

Day 9: Quick engine update and more work on stripping Muriel back to her shell.

As the children both left to go to their Dad’s this morning I decided to go and have a couple of hours working on Muriel, but before I get into that there’s an update on the engine! The block is ready and now has its oversized pistons in and the crank back in place. The cylinder head is almost ready, but Mark found all the valves to be seized (no surprise there). The valves have now been taken care of and, Mark very kindly offered to have everything back to me for Christmas, but I know I’ll need more experienced people watching over me, so we decided not to rush it and the engine will be back in January. I’m hoping to book a couple of days off work so that I can get it built back up, without rushing and doing something stupid.

It was a really drizzly day today, so Muriel stayed in the container and I chose the god forsaken job of removing the front windscreen. NEVER AGAIN! Who knew rubber was so tough and uncompromising when it was so old. It took me most of my time there, scraping with screwdrivers and cutting with a Stanley knife. Everything just came off in ridiculous, tiny little bits. I felt better once I could feel the screen loosing and, eventually I got it out. I’m really hoping it’s easier to put it back in. The back screen is still in .
I only worked on the front end today, using natural light, so after the glass removal, I took to removing Muriel’s drivers wing.
Back to work tomorrow, but hoping to be back with Muriel at the weekend 🩷

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[MsRose]

Sorry I can’t post photos, but when linking to Facebook from this site, the pictures disappear fairly quickly. My Facebook link is in the footer if you’d like to see pics.


Day 11: A few things to update you on with Muriel . Firstly and one of the biggest things is the engine has arrived back after engineering work. Mark from Absolute Engines has really been a pleasure to deal with! Really knows his stuff and is so helpful. I’ve booked a couple of days off work to build the engine……. Which worries the life out of me, but with so many helpful people around me, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

I’ve also sat and gone through the paperwork which will ensure Muriel keeps her original registration. The Morris Minors Owners Club will verify the many photos, ID plates and supporting information, ready to then be sent to DVLA. The forms from DVLA ask some really detailed questions so I need to speak to someone else who’s gone through the same process.

So, two hours to spend on Muriel yesterday. It was awesome to be able to have an experienced person literally making mince meat out of some of the jobs I’d been struggling with. The last rear wing came off, sill finishes were removed, exposing the inner sills, the fuel tank was disconnected and pulled out, the tiny little ‘pea shooter’ of an exhaust was removed, along with the propshaft.
As you can imagine, the full extent of any rot was uncovered, but it’s great that these little cars have a huge list of new panels which can be purchased.
Updates should start to become once a week again, starting from next Wednesday as I swap my suit for overalls and my office for a storage container and fresh air