Morris Minor Owners Club

Excellent turnaround David!

Are you planning to rebuild engine and gearbox? If its been sat around a long time I would imagine lots of seals and things will need replacing. But a shiney casing is a start

It's looking very good and this thread is excellent maybe i t could be stickied as it seems to be full of information and inspiration.

Thanks for the comments chaps, the gearbox cleaning continued this morning and the clutch linkages were stripped out from the gearbox and cleaned up, ready for a close inspection.[frame][/frame]

some new parts needed there, the clutch withdraw lever is itself ok, but the release bearing is worn out. Its a false economy not to replace it when the gearbox is out anyway, and that boot looks a little ,erm, chewed. [frame][/frame]

So some parts to order there then, turning my attention back to the engine, and stripping off the parts from the outside.[frame][/frame]

and the other side of the engine, the manifold came off without a hitch.[frame][/frame]

Manifold itself looks in good order, but I wonder if the pipe is cut off to short[frame][/frame]

The engine without the manifold, look at that colouration. Still, its getting closer to clean up time, just a few more bits and pieces still to come off. Worryingly, still can't crank it over with the starting handle, somethings sticking in there, hope its not too heavy like a seized bearing. Time will show all.[frame][/frame]

put some deisel down the bores
i would say that the bores will be heavily rusted
take head off and have a look before doing much else to it

There does seem to be a lot of rust in those head ports!

was the engine left outside in the rain?

You could say that, for over twenty years it was left out in the rain, it was also left out in cow/horse dung, rabbit warrens, mouse warrens, hedge and thorns... you name it, nature threw at it, but despite this image, the bonnet was down the whole time, I mean rusted down. [frame][/frame]

I had a job getting the bonnet catch to free, not that it looks as if the bonnet being down protected the engine much, We shall see when I start taking it apart.[frame][/frame]

In that case, I would concurr with AU's advice and take off the head to inspect the bores. At the very least if rusted, your engine will need to be bored out.

Thanks John. So to start with off came the rocker cover this afternoon, no problems getting that off.[frame][/frame]

Alarm at first glance it all looked rusted to hell..[frame][/frame]

then with a gentle scrape with a screwdriver, the red colour proved to be decaying oil with strong metal underneath, so out came the rocker assembly with no problems at all.[frame][/frame]

It all seemed to be going swimingly, if thats a descriptive word, it most certainly describes what I saw next...[frame][/frame]

Oh my gawd wheres's my pistons gone! he was heard to yell, then I remembered the oily diesel crap I poured down the spark plug holes to help protect the innerds.[frame][/frame]

It'll take some sponging to soak that lot out of the pots, more tommorow.[frame][/frame]