Morris Minor Owners Club

Right, seems like only me posting here now! I'll keep on postingupdates as I think its interesting and my mates and family are regularly checking this post for updates and to see where their sons got to!

Just spent the morning removing the wing, did have plans for an MOT today but now Friday will be the day! So a leasurley afternoon ahead of welding awaits!

Took the wong off, Jonathon wasnt wrong about the expanda foam! All in the wheel arch area was covered and it took ages hacking off the old foam and dried on underseal to get to the bolts which were then a mixture of sizes and tight as F###! A few bleeding knuckles later and the wing was off and exposing this.





Looks a fright but it aint that bad, 3-4 patches and it'll be sound! got it planned out and tempates made already!

So unless theres a huge area somewhere else that needs attention then that should be me! Fingers crossed!

Good luck with it, you need it by the looks of it!

heathy12 wrote:Right, seems like only me posting here now!

But plenty still reading...

Oh it makes interesting reading all right!! And makes my Traveller look MINT!!

Keep up the good work.

Pete

Good luck with the woodwork - I remember doing the same but it didn't prevent the rear post falling off!

You might get the traveller through the test and have a cheap year's driving -assuming the MOT man isn't clued up. I'm afraid one who is clued-up would fail it through lack of integral strength...

Chris Morley wrote:Good luck with the woodwork - I remember doing the same but it didn't prevent the rear post falling off!

You might get the traveller through the test and have a cheap year's driving -assuming the MOT man isn't clued up. I'm afraid one who is clued-up would fail it through lack of integral strength...

Ive locked the back doors and "lost the keys" and with them shut nothing moves whatso ever, app won't be a problem for the MOT so fingers crossed on that one!

Was rather funny yesterday, was hoping for an MOT, all works done now and its ready. Went into the MOT testers with my mate (martin) from the garage to see if they could do it saturday and martin asks the two MOT testers there. Whats the regs on emissions for pre '71 vehicles, they said, just visual mate. (we just wanted to check, so they've set the precident now!)
Next martin says, 'ive got a Minor Traveller we'd like MOT'd' they both look at each other and have a discussion about who was the eldest and would know more about them and a bit of banter about how neother of them fancied testing it. Eventually one of them says, 'oh, okay then i'll do it'.
Martin says good, thanks. So thats an MOT for Monday (was hoping for fri or Sat but hey ) Martin then says, oh and its a little bit different this one, yeah say the MOT testers, how? Its running 115brake and its turbo charged.These two guys fall about laughing saying 'yeah right! That old shed!'
So we took them out to show them, their jaws hit the floor!
The MOT testers fall about laughing

The other MOT tester immediatley turns to the other and says.

"You know, I dont really mind testing it if you didn't, shall I, your a bit buisy"

They then start arguing about who'd test it! and what else they had on monday and how each of them should do it rather than the other.

Priceless, we were in stiches when we got back to Martins Garage! I guess you had to be there but just goes to show how peoples first impressions and veiws on things can be...and how quickly they change!

So thats one MOT booked for Monday! Yay!

Last little job to do is to hard wire in the horn switch again, its started being a bit tempramental, traced the cable back but its a bit of a maze of wires, going to be easier running a couple of new wires thru me thinks!

Next up-date monday! Going to do some more filming too!

Right. Bit of a cold day today so wasnt too fussed about leaving the house so talked my mate at the garage into letting me use some ramps to finish things off in the warm! When I get a garage im getting some ramps!

Finished off the welding which id not got round to finishing so everythings sound and hunky dorey underneath now.

Just a few electrical gremlins stopping the Horn brake lights and headlamp from working then letting them start again! Had to re-wire the horn and make up new loom sections to replace brittle corroded old earths in a few places but nothing much and everythings working now!

Found a few interesting things too.

Been fitted with a type of home made vented disc brake backplate! Very basic and simple but probably quite effective and a nice little touch!





The Ford Sierra Gearbox has been really well modified and uses the Ford support bracket along with a nice couple of extra spacers to hold it all up, very neat touch!





The clutch linkage is incredible, really well engineered and thought thru.

It consists of a modified clutch pedal to accept a cable, it then runs back to a tensioner pulley by the gearbox mount and runs on a pulley forward to the clutch lever arm and has a return spring to keep it all tight! Very profesional looking neat and well thought out!



There was me thinking i'd have to fiddle around again plumbing in another hydraulic linkage with all sorts of different pipe sizes and connections!

The gearbox adapters really nicely finished too. Its a BMC bellhousing, Minor I think or similar, theres a laser cut backplate that bolts to the Sierra gearbox then the adapter bolts directly to the original minor bellhousing! Dead neat and tidy! The problem with my old Marina setup was the huge back plate fowling on everything, not a nice setup really!



Rear axles good, Marina unit and diff with extra anti tramp bars very neatly welded into the back.





And my first direct look at the Turbo! Its all a bit shoehorned in around the turbo, carb and exhaust area!



So fingers crossed for an MOT tommorrow now! Update to follow!
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Just Failed the MOT unfortunatley!

Only on little things though which is a releif.

-Servo Not working (filter dirty or vacume cavitating me thinks)
-Headlights not aligned (Big deal! )
-Handbrake loose (My fault didnt take play out of handbrake when I changed the pads,
its fine but you have to pull it up over halfway which is a fail!)
-Sharp edge on wing. (nothing duct tape wont fix! )

Also after a slightly blonde moment with an air nut runner I need some new wheel studs

PLEASE SEE HERE FOR WANTED WHEEL STUDS AND NUTS!

All in all nothing really!

One scrap car from ebay, a couple of days work, a little bit of welding, a little bit of wood filling, a new battery and some fresh fuel oil and service and im motoring!

Im off out to fix the Marina wheels for the re-test, hopfully tommorrow!

I'd be happy with that....
I'll have a look in my shed for studs...

GAS wrote:I'd be happy with that....
I'll have a look in my shed for studs...

Im more than happy with that for a SPARES OR REPAIR car!

Just fitted the Marina Steel wheels for retest tommorrow so no rush but will need some longer studs which will need to be 50mm legnth in all I recon and new (Chromed pref) nuts at some point soon.

Adjusted the handbrake whilst changing the wheels over so just the servo to get working proprely (im convinced it is tho!) the headlights to adjust and a tack to put on the wing to gold the bottom 'Sharp edge' in.

Rolling tommorrow!

Just in time to go away for a week home to Scotland! Bloomin Typical! But it does mean I can get some more work done on the other two door saloon ready for the conversion now! Its all coming together so well!



Trying to map out some shows to go along to now.
Anyone else going to go to the Bristol Classic Car show at Shepton mallett?? I'll be there, might be another excuse for a mini webrally??!?

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I have marina hubs on my ride and I changed all the studs with ones from a montego/mestro.
These studs are a straight swop and are much heavier,
The chrome/dome topped nuts from a 800 series rover finish the job off.

If you are passing Motherwell on your way home ,give me a shout and we could chew the fat.....

Well done indeed - but you don't NEED a servo - and in fact I can't see how they can fail the servo at MOT - unless it's leaking hydraulic fluid. These pictures are excellent - very handy for anyone thinking of doing these conversions (Ford box/rear tramp bars etc) - just one question - I see the rear dampers going up the inner wings - what do they fix to ? Any chance of a picture of that ?

I'll try and get some pictures up tommorrow of the rear dampers.

But basically all they are is an inch and half box section steel with one face machined off and tapered from the top to bottom (if you can picture that!) With a capping at one end that the top of the damper bolts to, then the whole lot is just welded into the inner wing. The damper then bolts down into the axle pick up.

Out of the whole car the most impressive bit is the clutch mechanism, never seen anything like that on a car! The closest ive seen is at work....on aircraft control cables!

I thought it was the case with the servo that if its fitted then it should work, so that not the case or should I be challenging it. Ive gotta pull all the pipe off in the morning as I think its cavitating somewhere although the hoses are very thick. The diaphram is fine and the filter looks ok to me so im at a bit of a loss if its not the pipes or non return valves. Although it could be something to do with the Fifi valve thats fitted (just thought about that!) Surely if thats venting or leaking then it would give you no servo pressure. hmmmm. food for thought and something to sleep on!

Im up at West Kilbride for the next week then back to get some miles under my belt in the travbut hope to get some more work done on the 2 door donor shell.


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Heres the fail sheet.....yes im bored tonight and its too dark to work on the car! Had hoped to be driving around tonight but hey!



All thats left on the list is the headlights, Brake vacum too slow and parking brake adjustment.



Had the bezel off the headlight in readiness for some adjustment!



Looks quite smart! The woodworks dired out almost completely now, the preserver and fillers sound and strong so should be good for a while now!

Oh, forgot to post up the pictures of my welding! Came out quite well! THis is half finished, didnt have the camera to hand when I finished and just wanted to get the whole thing painted and the wing on so didnt bother. Managed to pick up the line of the inner wing and continue it down, even managed to replicate the spot welds quite well!


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WE HAVE A PASS!

A couple of hours tinkering thismorning and it flew thru the MOT!

Servo not working was down to a non return valve from the Manifold sticking open, one new valve from the box in the boot and that was fixed.

Welded a patch on the front wing and a support bracket to neaten up the jagged front wing.

Original Marina wheels were fitted again last night, look crap but theres no issues with knocks bumps and wheel nuts not being in safety.

Handbrake was me Didnt tighten up the rear drums fully when I changed the rear shoes, a couple of turns on the adjusters and that was sorted.

Headlights the re-test guy did while we were in to save some time.

Now im just having a spot of lunch then im gona hit the road and let the beast loose! on the way to the post office for FREE TAX!

It such a quick car, unbeleivable!

Might get some more pictures up later but have to leave for the airport at 5 so wont have much time which is a pain! At least I can look forwards to driving her when I get back now rather from welding and woodwork......oh, actually, I do! One traveller roadworthy one more to go now!


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Well done indeed. And yes - I can visualise the rear damper mounts ok - kind of external 'turrets' I suppose - but is there no 'bracing bar' across the inside of the car between the 'turrets'.

Well done! Not bad for a car you were considering scrapping!

Heres the repair/bodge done to the fron wing!



Goes with the rat look well I think!



Inner support bracket to hold it in place!

Heres the rear turret to support the damper.







I'll get some better pics when i manage to sort out the wheel studs. Which is proving to be a headache!

Lok quite easy to fabricate IMO, just a piece of box section with top capping really. No support cross struts fitted inside the car which might be something to think about, unless there is a bar under the boot floor I havent noticed. Should be fine in the 2 door saloon anyway!

The front and rear damper kits are from C.S.Autoclassics. We fitted these when we were acting as his sole agent. The main problem with these was that they encroach quite a bit into the arch limiting tyre size. They work perfectly well. When we designed our own inboard kit we addressed the virtues of having a cross member between the turrets. This now offers a very rigid set up.