Morris Minor Owners Club

RobMoore wrote:-snip-
If you have a dolly then lots of tapping should help remove most of it but my guess is you will need to use filla to get it true.
and since you have basically built this van from scratch I would imagine you wont be able to live with such a visible distortion.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. Best practice here is to straighten the panel as much as possible with hammer and dolly, then apply the filler.

If you have ever seen American Hot- Rod on Discovery channel- after prepping the metal work to get the panels as flat as possible they skim virtually the whole car with filler then sand it down. You could get a big tub of filler, say Upol- easy sand and skim the whole side once it is all in etch primer. Then sand with the longest block you have, 80 grit, then 180, finally 240 before filler primer. When you get to the 180 grit stage, then dust the panel with a mist coat of matt black paint and then sand with 180. This will reveal any low spots left as black paint that had not been sanded off the low areas. Fill again and sand etc till the whole panel is perfectly flat. Ripples gone. It is possible!

and they also have the doors and wings on and sand acroos the doors and wings to create the flow of door into wing

Major step in the right direction for my project today, I got a call from Dave at Autopics of Rustington West Sussex saying my cylinder head was ready for collection, I rushed out and collected it, very nice it is too.[frame][/frame]

the bottom suface has been professionally skimed and is now flat enough to give a good gas tight seal.[frame][/frame]

Just needs a good de-grease before I fit it all together.[frame][/frame]

There was no orientation markings on this gasket, so I took a guess and placed it copper colour side up.[frame][/frame]

Once the rebuilt head was slotted into place I retrieved my pushrods in their cardboard orientation holder[frame][/frame]

Then with all but one of the pushrods back in their original locations, I hit a snag, one of the rods wont sit correctly, it stands a lot higher than the others, Ive pushed and proded but it wont go down, anyone got any suggestions?
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Same view taken several weeks ago, the pushrods in their positions prior to disassembly, that pushrod is sitting correctly here, so it must go in and drop down to normal height somehow, I might try taking them all out again and rotating the crank and re positioning the cams, I wonder if that'll help.
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The tappet could have pulled out when the pushrods were removed & got stuck. best to remove the tappet chest covers to investigate

the copper gasket should say front and top if its a good quality payen one
would not think turning the cam shaft will make any difference
as above take the tappet side cover off and have a look
the push rod may be sitting on top of the cam follower

If the head gasket has no markings, the folded over lip goes on top.

go to the top of the class you morris 1000 A streamers, thats exactly what it was. I took the tappet chest cover off wondering what horror I might find and bingo, just what you described, simple fix, once its was cleaned up, lubricated and re positioned with a satisfying click.[frame][/frame]

now then onward and upward, the head is screwed down in a set sequence, the proceedure is described in my manual so here goes.[frame][/frame]

The valve cover with its brand new cork gasket, new gleaming spark plugs, the basic engine is complete. Right then, now for the engine ancillaries..[frame][/frame]

I'm SO glad I stopped showing my Morris 1000 the standard of compitition is going up!!

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Thanks Roger, thats a very usefull shot right there, do you have one from the other side?

i'm very interested in this project. i'm finding it perfect for my winter tasks.

i am waiting for the dizzy to be fitting and the timing being set up.

keep up the great work.

bestter for access to the bumper irons with out the engine in

You're dead right Dennis, they are the next bits in. Before any of the engine ancilleries start to clutter up the engine bay, so far there's plenty of room in there, but not for much longer, Bumper bars, starter motor, what order would you assemble after that anyone?[frame][/frame]