Morris Minor Owners Club

Well, the two of us have conferred, and the conclusion is that we had different garages. So although that spreads the blame a little thinner, it does mean that there are more problematic specialists in the area...

If the 'chattering' is on heavy load when going up hills - it's almost certainly 'pinking' - which if allowed to continue will cause piston damage. Try filling the tank with top grade petrol - does it still make the noise? Or simply retard the ignition timing and see if that sorts it!

Jack - your car does sound a bit of a mess - although some of these things are all too common on Minors, and relatively easily fixed, some of the others do sound quite serious. Obviously if you were more 'local' you could take the car back and complain. Not so easy in your situation. You could send them a Lawyer's letter demanding a refund of at least some of the cost - and you could approach the local Trading Standards Office and ask them if they have any previous complaints, and if they are willing to take up the fight on your behalf. But probably best is to get on with the job and just make the very best of the car. Plenty of advice and encouragement on here!

I will admit to not being the belligerent type. I'm most likely going to apply the old maxim- "stiff upper lip"- and get on with it. At heart I don't care; I just love working on cars. That there's so much work, in a way, is good! It'll give me experience... I plan to just reassemble the whole car bit by bit til I've got her at her best. It'll take a while, but I'm not exactly pressed for time... I can't even get a driving licence for a year!
Just out of interest, which were the more serious faults that you spotted? I might be prioritising the wrong stuff. I have one little joy- the wings and boot are fibreglass, so there will be at least one Morris on the road without a rotting bootlid! Curiously, even the fibreglass wings are corroded at the front end. And the whole car needs a respray... Oh well, once more unto the breech.

Time for a postscript on the chattering business.

Rather than go straight to the root of the problem, I took the scenic route.

Checked tappets: a couple needed slight adjustment, but no big deal.

Checked mixture; running a bit lean, so adjusted it.

Still pinking.

Tried the strobe on the timing marks. Strobe was too puny to do anything, so I used the retard-the-timing-on-the-click-wheel method.

Ta-dah! The time had come to say sayonara to pinking.

Thanks for the advice, all who offered it. It was invaluable.

I have now learned to stop worrying and love the Trav.

And we went over the Cambrian Mountains last week. Verrrry sloooowly in places, obviously.

Well done - but why slowly? You could also try a different make of petrol in the car - some seem to be better than others.

Most of the time we were bowling along; but there are some corkers of hills between Tregaron and Beulah, on the mountain road. We were down in first gear in a couple of places.... rumblerumblerumble...

Sounds great! Not an area I am familiar with - we have our own hills up here!