Dolly Exposed

[Chief]

I've been trying to find time all summer to go down to Cornwall on a Pastie run.

So THAT'S what jogle is all about

Once you buy a moggy I don't think many willingly give up / give away theirs till all options have been looked at. Minors have a disconcerting way of being too nice to lose ;)

[Multiphonikks]

I know that I'm sticking with Hebe through thick and thin I Just couldn't do it any other way

[Relfy]

I showed her to my old pal John who was at church today - the guy with the moggy, never stops talking about it? He actually told me there is a Cornwall club, and he's a member of both that and this one (I wonder why they're not affiliated??) and is something important in the Cornish one (I'm not very good at remembering jobs and ranks).

Anyway, he had a look at Dolly and was at first impressed, and then he had a heart attack over the spring hanger and told me to drive home carefully (as if I'm anything else!!). Then he looked at the sills, floor pan and a-posts and said I should take her to 'so-and-so' (other garage near me), get them to give a quote for the repairs and take that to show Keith, and also the garage who MOT'd her.

He said he'd have payed about £800 - £900 (or got him to repair it before buying her). Which sounds roughly right to me, considering I simply dont have any more money for repairs having bought her for what I did. That atleast gives me something to go on to talk to Keith with.

I think you're right Robins, legal action without exploring more amenable options first, sounds like something out of Hollywood and not the way to have any friends or credibility, or even a peaceful life for that matter. I'd rather NOT think of Dolly as a 'court case'. Blurgh!!

By the way you are very welcome to visit for a pasty..... St Ives? You must have missed Eddy's in Newlyn. Unfortunately old man Eddy died this year, so you'll never know..... *sigh* It'd be great to have you see Dolly too!

El.

p.s. I always spit out of the window when ever I pass the G**st**'s factory. 'cornish' pasty - my ****.

[Multiphonikks]

p.s. I always spit out of the window when ever I pass the G**st**'s factory. 'cornish' pasty - my ****.

O...K...

I'm not going to say what we had for lunch... Oh wait... it wasn't a pasty... just one of their wedges

[Chief]

hehe, never had anything else from them but have to say I like their cheese and onion ones Though they're not exactly cornish pasties.

[Relfy]

I must say that fills me with a deep and abiding sense of sadness.....
Perhaps I'll have to send a real one up to you both.
I know Chief, you send me a haggis and I'll send you a pasty.

...the last haggis I had exploded all over the ceiling. It was a tinned one. I think it was only 2 or 3 years over the best before.

Anyway, I ate it , and I DIDN'T die!! ...Amazingly.
(Sometimes risk-balancing gets confusing for students).

[aupickup]

so they are friends you bought the car from, well i hope i have better friends than that.

friends or no friends if something is wrong then it is wrong and that is that.

hope you haven`t been ripped off no one likes that.
there are folk who do rip others off , and sometimes within clubs !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Relfy]

aupickup, if friendship is on the condition that everyone makes no mistakes and does everthing right all the time, then noone would have any friends. And you wouldn't deserve yours, unless you are perfect?

[Gareth]

That's on the charitable assumption that your mate wasn't intending to pull the wool over your eyes, of course. Anyone can make a genuine mistake, but it takes a certain type of 'friend' to rip off a mate.

Hopefully it was a genuine mistake, and a polite conversation will give him the chance to hold his hands up and offer to do some of the repairs, or give a partial refund.

The MMOC is split into branches, so the club you mentioned may well be the Cornish Branch. To join you'd have to pay subs direct to them (usually a couple of pounds, I think) and you instantly have access to a wealth of local Moggy knowledge.

[Relfy]

Hey ho hum. Innocent till proven guilty is what I go by.

But I never said he was a 'mate' - like, I dont see him socially, except, when dad went over to check on the austin's progress, to go and listen-in and have a drink with his wife. However, the austin 10 took a long time (you should have seen it before it was restored!!) and thats a lot of visits! He used to work for a very reputable garage before he retired, and restoring classics is now his hobby/home-business.

But, while I dont see him as dishonest, that is gut feeling. What is LOGIC is that he'd need to be pretty low on intelligence to think I'm dense enough to let him pull wool over me eyes - and I dont think he is!! He's known me many years and I'm not known for being a dim-wit, nor do i think he is one. So it doesn't figure.

Anyway, I havn't even spoken to the poor guy yet! So, innocent till proven guilty, and I'm making sure I get my facts right.

....This may be aided by a haggis.
Its well known that haggis are brain-food.... (Chief)

[Chief]

can't stand them Relfy Never liked them even before moving up here

[Relfy]

Ooh. But I DO!

[Chris Morley]

Anyway, (John) had a look at Dolly and was at first impressed, and then he had a heart attack over the spring hanger and told me to drive home carefully

It sounds like John knows what he's talking about - so I guess there a hole near one of the rear spring hangers? If so that is a certain MOT failure and it would prove that the MOT is dodgy. It's a shame you didn't get John to look over the car with you before you bought it.

Generally a Minor will be safe even with a few small rust holes - however severe corrosion near the rear spring hanger is dangerous & it might conceivably cause your car to loose grip and spin (as it secures the rear axle). You need to get it fixed ASAP.

[Pyoor_Kate]

There's a shop in Brizzy which does nice cornish pasties, or at least what I think are cornish pasties

Minor's do have this disconcerting way of making you want to fix them, though to be fair I'd owned mine for a long time by the time the resto place went "well, she's definately restor*able*, but unless she has some sentinmental value, we wouldn't recommend it"....

She has lots of sentimental value

I think you probably do have something to discuss with this Keith bloke, "don't have sills" my posterior. Whether or not he was out to mislead you the car needs more work than you were lead to believe, and the MOT certainly sounds like they may have missed some items, or been 'lenient' (perhaps if they know the guy and were expecting him to get it fixed). But yeah, always be friendly first. Friendly can get you an awfully long way, if you go in all guns a blazing he may well just say "tough"....

....Good luck with 'er anyway, it's probably to late for you to want to change her anyway.... she's your car now

And say 'ello if you're ever in Brizzy, you can tell me if any those cornish pasties are any good.

[rayofleamington]

however severe corrosion near the rear spring hanger is dangerous & it might conceivably cause your car to loose grip and spin (as it secures the rear axle). You need to get it fixed ASAP.

My 4 door had a badly fitted axle/spring/u-bolt combination that allowed the axle to move about 10mm. I only found this out on the first weekend after the MOT. This was quite scary on the motorway as the car would steer to the right when accelerating and left when decellerating! Fortunately it was easily fixed, however from the parts you could see it had been driven like that for quite some time!
If the spring hanger actually parts company from the body, you should be able to spot it quickly as the car will handle pretty randomly (might be best to look for an urgent repair before it happens though).

[Relfy]

Well! This is like a soap opera!

I went to see Keith and showed him everything. He was amiable and said he hadn't known as he hadn't looked. He'd expected the MOT to show anything up, and he'd fix it for me, but he couldn't until someway through October because he's going to the scilly's next week for a long holiday.

So, I explained that I needed her fixed now as I've got an interview in Cardiff next week, which may result in a job by October - Would he be willing to have me get it done somewhere else and pick up the bill?

He said not really, he'd rather do it himself as then he knows its done right. He said he's really sorry it wasn't done before selling it, as if he'd known, it would have already been done!

I asked him if he had a bone to pick with the garage then? And he said, well he cant unfortunately, because the chap who did it, owned the garage and he had a nervous break-down shortly after doing Dolly, sold on the business and retired!

(Well, that would explain why he did a rubbish job then - as I was surprised. That garage normally has a good name.)

So, I told Keith my current opinion on what I would have payed for her (£750 - 800) in her present condition, and why I think that. And then asked again, if he would either refund me the difference or pick up the repair's bill? He said he'd talk to his wife about the former, and would decide on the latter once I got a quote.

He DID, however, offer to buy Dolly back off me. I agree, you cant get fairer than that. But I need to think about it, as I like Dolly.

For those who've analysed my pics, Keith's approach to the spring hanger would be to weld a new plate "Stronger than new, you could hang the whole car up by it". I wasn't sure about this and said I'd rather have a new spring hanger. He said welding it would be even better.
He would cut out the areas of rust and holes on the springs and, floor pan and a-posts and weld new pieces in there too. He talked about the spring hanger needing thick old-style metal whereas, the sills are just sheet metal.

I'm going to take Dolly up to a moggy man in Redruth that John has recommended and get a second opinion from him, and then the saga will continue!

As I thought, no bloodshed anyway!



Got some further questions though..... I dont think this is about the spring hanger, but you could look at the pic on the website and see...

Its about braking. Dolly's got the old style brake drums, which of course I'm not used to. And no servo.

If I'm doing a fair gallop and have to break quite hard, say at a corner, I can sometimes feel pull, either to the left or to the right, it doesn't seem to be consistently the same way.

If I break gently, or gradually, then it doesn't notice atall.

Is that just how things are with old brakes? What do you say?

[Gareth]

This is a soap opera, isn't it?

Sounds like it was a genuine mistake (the best kind ;) ), and he appears to have been amiable about the whole thing, as you've said. I don't quite understand the bit about the spring-hanger - is he going to cut out the whole area, and weld in a new spring-hanger, or is he just going to plate over the hole... Don't like the idea of that - if it's to be done properly he should be using the proper panels.

you could hang the whole car up by it

I don't know why, but "mechanic's hyperbole" really, really worries me... it's like builders sucking their teeth...

Go for the second opinion, and see what the Moggy garage would offer, but are they specialists in Minors, and therefore have access to all the reproduction panels &c. ??

The best option, IMO, would be a refund. Of course, you've seen his workmanship (I think... or am I getting confuzzled again? ) so you will know if you're happy with his standard. At least he's offered to do the work, even if he can't get round to it just yet. That might be a good option, so long as he doesn't keep putting it to the bottom of the pile.

Buying the car back? Then you wouldn't have Dolly, would you? You'd have to make a heart or head decision. I can't do those - heart wins every time!

[rayofleamington]

You'd have to make a heart or head decision.

now that's a tough one.

If the areas are just plated then it's only a temporary job (really it's more of a botch job but that has to be put in a tactful way) and as the sill will be rotting away on the inside you'll probably soon have holes next to your plates.. leading to more botch jobs and bigger plates, or for having it all done properly.
For a good repair the work needs to be done with proper replacement panels. The sills were made of 'just sheet metal' that is then press-formed into a special shape - the shape helps give it strength.
You can bend and hammer sheet metal to a similar shape but it won't have the strength of a pressed panel with nice clean lines. The other advantage of using proper panels is that whole sections of the sill get done therefore it reduces the tendency of half-job merchants to do a small repair and leave the rest for a rainy day.
As for the spring hangar - this is meant to sit under the floor and be strengthened by the big box section under the back seat. You can easily pass an MOT by welding plates around the spring hangar but this is not how it should be done and I bet money that no moggy centre would do that.
The replacement panel includes the floor and the spring hangar, and the cutting/welding will take the same amount of time, however the additional work of removing the rear spring and carefully lining up the new hangar is probably what the guy is trying to avoid.

And as for the MOT man that had a nervous breakdown - this sounds plausible but if it was me I'd go to the garage and check the story to make sure. It's well known for car traders to have 'contacts' for getting dodgy MOT's and in some cases this puts motorists safety at risk.

If it was me I'd give it back, but mainly because I've already had enough moggies to last me a lifetime and a moggy saloon that has rusted sills, spring hangars and a-posts isn't worth the hassle to me anymore (I've had a few in the past).
You have to weigh up the cars redeeming qualities against welding bills in the future, and the car does have plenty of redeeming features. A car that is very presentable is worth more money on the second hand market however and if you plan to give it a lot of use then good engine brakes and gearbox are important, however for that price you should be able to get a solid car that is also presentable.

[Kevin]

Sounds like it was a genuine mistake

I am inclined to agree with Gareth

Keith's approach to the spring hanger would be to weld a new plate "Stronger than new, you could hang the whole car up by it". I wasn't sure about this and said I'd rather have a new spring hanger. He said welding it would be even better.

However the term "Stronger than new" bothers me as there is no such thing in the Minors case, my 65 is original with nothing wrong with the spring hangers, and you cant make it stonger by using a heavier guage metal as the metal you weld to is still the original thickness, and the replacement hangers come on a shoe like piece of metal to retain the strength when replaced. and the sills are only sheet metal well of course the whole car is made from sheet metal I think he may be talking about the cover plate (the bit you can see) as the sill is made up of various parts, ie inner sill step, boxing plate, quarter panel, etc, to see the actual parts have a look at
http://www.morrisminor.org.uk/,
go to the parts catalogue section 3 and you will see all the parts.
I know what I would do in your place but its your car and money and friendship.

[Relfy]

The other advantage of using proper panels is that whole sections of the sill get done therefore it reduces the tendency of half-job merchants to do a small repair and leave the rest for a rainy day.

Thats what I'm worried about! I think Keith's response once I've asked this moggy man what he would do, will clinch whether I keep her, or... sell her back. (NOOO!!!!)

As for the spring hangar - this is meant to sit under the floor and be strengthened by the big box section under the back seat.

Well, the srping hanger - I wouldn't say the box under the seat is corroded atall - I've looked both sides (under the seat and up from the ground), and surprisingly, it looks hunkydory. Its just that big chunk thats corroded out of the 'flat' of the hanger that is bad... as shown in the pic: http://dollymorris.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/ 'bigger pics'.

The floor only looks that way around it, because of bits of road-scum hanging off and the funny pixelated image.

...actually, further to what you said about welding pieces in vs complete new panels Ray, thats another thing that is swaying my decision. The rear end is in very good nick. But, thats because work has recently done in the sills just infront of the wheel arches where new pieces have been welded in. My feeling has always been "Well, thats only a matter of time too, but atleast its good for a few years, and maybe by then I'll have a job..."
....Now, I'm thinking a bit differently.

Yes, but for Keith it was an honest mistake. No need to check on the garage. This is a small town and Keith couldn't say something like that without risking me finding out if its not true, anyway. The grapevine of gossip here would inthrall you! Of course I keep me ears open anyway.