Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi all i have finally found a van for sale had alook at it today,
well drivers side wing flapping about,passenger wing with rust holes, rear passenger wing rust holes, sills need done both sides,roof around gutter rust holes, chassis drivers side at lest 4 holes, floor panels need replaced.

Well when i phoned the owner he said the sills and floor panels were all that needed done and would cost around £60 yeh right, anyway it for sale at £650 ono what do you guys think i should pay for it or should i leave it and look for something else. my intension was or is to get a van and restore it for use with my window cleaning, sigh written it should be the buiss. thanks in advance

Front wings are bolt on and easy. Rear ones will need to be welded, again not impossible at all, some metal forming needed if the curve from the wing to the van side is holed. Sills relatively simple too, as they are not as structural as they are on a saloon, and the floor panels are no big deal to either patch or replace. Roof and gutters will (I imagine) be trickier, simply because the curves are more complex, but the biggest worry is the chassis. It's do-able, but I'd be VERY concerned about the state of the rest of the chassis - check it out with a small hammer and see if it's bacofoil thin. The sills and floors will cost rather more than £60 for the parts, the labour a LOT more than that again if you're not Ding IY I'm guessing, but I'd say £650 was high/the very top of what it's worth - and that's if it has an MOT. Try and get the owner down - and if you get it, prepare yourself for either a lot of work or a lot of paying someone to do the work. He is blagging/wrong about what needs to be done, and presumably you want it to be fairly smart for business.

Hi thanks for the reply bigginger, well no mot not been on the road for years he said, but would start up, me not so sure, did not have a battery or jump leads to try it its a 1967 van the rest of it looks ok, my mate is a welder so no problems there, as it has been of the road so long i would change plugs oil etc, yes as you say a lot of work, but i am in no rush want it done right as i intend to have it for years, been after one for a while how much do you thionk i should pay for this i was thinking £500 max or is that to much

i would go along with biginger on this, the chassis would be of some concern. also gutters are expensive to have done
from your description i would say it sounds just a spares only and certainly not worth the kind of money he would want.
you would be looking at a couple of thousand to get it done and that is a very conservative guesstimate.

i would say give it a miss and look on ebay, there are a couple of nice vans on at the moment

I've paid £400 for a van in better nick than that, but it did come with that much worth of panels from someone I trusted. I'd say give it a miss unless you want to do things over a couple (at least) of years, and definitely too much money given that there's no MOT. You'd be spending at least £2k like AU says. Really only worth about 2 or 3 £ hundred as an absolute max, I'd guess.

this looks pretty good for the price

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %3AIT&rd=1

It certainly does!

Thanks for your replies, i have decided to leave it and look for something else, i am looking for something nearer the £500 quid mark

well i think it would be only fair to say that for £500.00 generally you are only going to get a scrap one in reality

Yes, you might get a late scruffy 2 door saloon with MoT for £500 but not a van or pickup unless you are VERY lucky and drop on it. I would be thinking more of £1500 for a scruffy van with MoT but needing some work...

Agreed - that's what Bunny cost me, anyway

hi again how much would it cost in parts to replace the chassis, i think it was the drivers side leg that was rotten, could i buy sections and weld them in, or how much for a new chassis

As far as I know, you can only get the front and rear legs. Hang on, I'll look up the price. OK, Charles Ware do the legs for £35 each. New chassis? Nobody does them any more to my knowledge, though the Danish firm that are reproducing vans are making them. Let us know if you find somebody selling them - please

I think the Birmingham Minor Centre do them but you may have to wait to get one. Also they will not be cheap!

Thanks bigginger, spoke to my welder mate he says he could rebuilt the chassis for me including sills etc, the roof gutter itself is alright its got rust holes just below the gutter so i could just buy the bits and he would do the welding, saying that would it be worth it

Cool - they usually seem to go just above the gutter, underneath it on flat steel is a bonus Cheers for that, Cam - I didn't know

hi

well you can buy the sri lanken chassis about £700.00 i think, but they are a bit iffy.
the only problem with maybe your chassis is what is rotten inside the chasis that you can not see ie inside where the top plates are.
if you were going to restore the chassis then it would be a good idea to take all the top sections off and have a good look.
on the chassis at the moment take a hammer and tap the chassis all round, any rotten bits will sound muffled and the good bits will ring.
you can not get any repair panels for the cab back guttering as yet, you will have to get them fabricated.
parts you can get are rear inner and outer valence, rear chassis sections ( short), rear light repair panels and floors and inner arches and out wheel arches.

i would think unless you can do all the welding yourself, or if your mate would do it for a knock down price the van is really not worth doing.

but of course if you have a few grand a time then it can be done.
remeber though it is all ways cheaper to buy a van that has all ready been restored !!!!!

aupickup wrote:remeber though it is all ways cheaper to buy a van that has all ready been restored !!!!!

and that's just about true for any moggie

it's a love thing

very true

It must be, there's no other logical reason why we'd do what we do!