Morris Minor Owners Club

I knew there was slight accident damage to the rear of the car from the condition of the rear bumper but apart from some unusual 'tearing' of the panel below the boot aperture around the bumper fixing points I thought it would be a relatively easy fix; however. on closer inspection of the panel below the boot lid shows it has been 'hit' along it's whole length as if the car has been reversed into a low wall of some kind and it is now structurally weak.

There is also an annoying crease in the boot floor, better seen from below (see photo).

The relatively poor condition of the boot floor panel immediately inside the boot leads me to think that the damage must have happened a long time ago and was never really dealt with. Water has subsequently got into the boot and laid there over time causing deep pitting.

So I am going to replace the section of boot floor affected and the outer rear panel below the boot lid.

Any MIG welder recommends for this gauge of metal? I was going to buy one anyway for my other two projects just didn't expect to do it now.

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After the above discovery I decided to examine the dynamo and starter. Both were very oily, very dirty 'lumps'.
I started to clean the dynamo and under the oily exterior is a further much larger area of blue paint.

Interestingly the paint is on the front and rear pivot plates so that coverage must be the same for 'green' engines as well?

hi ian

starter the same colour as mine which is also 1953 and is all original. also is that an ac cobra hiding away in the corner .you are going from on extreme to another with speed

dave

Hi Dave, I can't say it's an AC as it is a replica built by a UK company - Crendon Replicas. It is however a dimensionally accurate recreation of a 427 Semi Competition Cobra from 1966 and was finished last April.

My double garage is tight with two cars in (one in pieces) so it has to remain in with the Morris.

I've always loved Minors and had quite a few over the years. I have gradually moved towards the earlier models.

So one of the cars in the garage has 510 bhp Big Block Ford V8 and can break the motorway speed limit in second gear and the other can't.

Hi Mike,

I’m pretty sure the bootlid is original. It has no rust on it at all just like the rest of the car panels. I’ll take a picture of the rear side tomorrow. I’ll see if I can take another picture of of the damage to illustrate how it may have occurred.

hi ian

even replica cobras are beautiful but far to much power i also have one but you cant even pull away in first gear .but i still love my 1st minor trying to get it back on the road .but have to rely on mechanics

dave

The boot lid has not been damaged in the rear accident and I believe it is original to the car. The patina is a perfect match.

The sunshine in the first photo helps show how badly pitted the boot floor is compared to the condition of the rest of the car.

In the second photo I have tried to show the object impact point by holding a piece of wood up to the bodywork and hopefully you can see is below the rear bumper line. This is why I immediately thought of a low wall type of object.

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The dynamo now has a first coat of blue/grey paint after dismantling and cleaning. It looked ok inside so I have only ordered new electrical brushes.

Whilst painting it I noticed the build date stamped into the casing of '1 53' (Jan 1953) so that tallies with the car's build date of 23rd February 1953.

Moving on to the starter motor, I scraped the oily goo off it, washed it down and it is clearly black in colour. Checking it's build date code it was made '2 53' (Feb 1953) again it looks to be the original item for the car. There is no trace of any other colour on it other than black so I am going to repaint in black.

Has anyone else seen this colour combination on a blue/grey engine?

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Great to have so many original items!

The tourer Im working on has been stripped at some point and lots of bits missing, i gradually trying to replace with the proper bits as i go along

I've seen black with a blue engine before. Looks OK. Means the starter was referbished a long time ago by the dealer via lucas, a nice piece of history.

Thanks Stevey, I didn’t know that. Is this working method described anywhere as it appears to be really inefficient?

I suppose different days.

Maybe not so inefficient if all it needed was a clean up and some new brushes........no different in principle to some items today which require a surcharge to ensure return of the original for refurbishing. More environmentally friendly too

Back in those days most towns would have had a local Lucas agent who would have carried out such reconditioning "in house" and collected and delivered items such as dynamos and starter motors to all the local garages so that the turnaround time would have been very quick.

Actually, most decent garages would have been able to carry out such an overhaul themselves........ Nowadays, garages generally just seem to fit new parts and very little gets repaired or reconditioned.

Still wading through parts refurbishment at the moment and was running out of working space in the garage until my understanding wife suggested that I could bring the 'clean' parts upstairs and store temporarily in the spare bedroom. How lucky am I?

And before anyone says anything, I have put protective sheets down over the bed.

I retrieved the engine from the machine shop today so I have given the block a first coat of blue paint this evening. The crank journals have been polished and deemed ok but the main journal bearings (although new) need replacing due to scratch marks on them from rust particles. I thought the original camshaft could be saved but examining it again I am now on the hunt for a better one to replace it.

I'm taking on board Phil's previous suggestion and looking for a complete 803cc engine so I can harvest the rocker cover, big end bolts, main bearing bolts and hopefully the camshaft. I also now know that I am missing 2no flywheel to crank bolts, the 4no water pump studs, 6no clutch pressure plate to flywheel bolts and possibly quite a few other 'smalls'.

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Hi Mike,

PM sent regarding your post.

Regards Ian

I did take up Mike's offer and went to pick up the engine, gearbox etc., yesterday.

Again, nice meeting you Mike and many thanks for helping me break down the components so I could get them in my car!

It had been proving difficult to find the missing 803cc engine parts I needed in the timescale I have set myself, so it makes economic sense to swap the missing parts from Mike's recently running engine into mine.

I did let Mike know before I bought his engine what I wanted to do with it, to kind of get his permission, so there will now be parts of his engine living on in mine.

Photo 1 - My original 'BMC' engine block has been ready for a few days now and I am happy I have finally bottomed out all the suspect parts and workmanship.

Photo 2 - I have mentioned before that my engine had been assembled with different types of big end bolts which indicates to me the sort of workmanship that was involved in the original refurbishment. Not inspiring.

Photo 3 - And one of the big end caps had been attacked with a saw; presumably to cut through a big end bolt?

Photo 4 - Newly purchased engine's rocker cover cleaned and ready for blasting.

Photo 5 - Newly purchased engine's rocker assembly stripped down, cleaned, inspected oiled and reassembled ready for further use.

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Today, I've continued to strip down, clean and examine the donor engine for the parts I need to complete my engine.

Photo 1 - It is a 'gold seal' unit - (there is an alloy label attached to the block low down behind the tappet chest breather pipe) but the engine has been heavily over-painted at some point in the past.

I think the water pump will be serviceable.

Photo 2 - There is a 'dished' oil thrower on this engine and I am wondering which is 'correct' for 1953 as I have bought a new one that is 'flat'?

Photo 3 - Getting into the bottom of the engine and all bolts visible are a match as hoped for.

Photo 4 - Parts ready to go into my block which include 'donor' conrods with matching bolts, donor camshaft which is so much better than mine, new cam followers, donor pushrods for the complete donor rocker assembly.

To summarize - Parts sourced from donor engine include -

Rocker cover
Rocker cover hold down bolts
Complete rocker assembly
8no tappet pushrods
Replacement camshaft
2no tappet chest bolts
4no studs for cast iron water pump
'Dished' oil thrower
6no Main Bearing Cap bolts (now matching)
4no Conrods
4no small end pinch bolts
8no Big End bolts (now matching)


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