Morris Minor Owners Club

Just a quick question regarding the rear wooden doors on the Traveller. Is it normal for these doors to warp or rather enlarge in winter ??? To be more specific, the doors on my traveller (now removed for restoration) had trouble closing easily in the cold or winter, you sort of had to join them together in the middle and then push, if you know what I mean.

I was told that this was caused by the doors absorbing moisture and expanding as most wooden doors do, but is this a common and normal occurance ?? I just ask as I want to replace some rails on the doors if possible, but if new doors won't expand as much then I'll just go that route.

Anyone any experience on this one ???

I guess they could swell a little, but if its bad thats a serious sign that the varnish is poor and needs sorting out properly. The exterior finish is supposed to stop water penetration which would cause this.

Saying all that, I do notice my doors adjust through the year so it probably always going to happen a liittle.

Yeah. I have two choices. Either try and rescue the doors by replacing whats needed - some of the small rails are rotten at the ends where they meet the upright (as usual), so I want to see if it can be saved by replacing rails. Or, get new doors. But I have to strip the old varnish off first and have a look.

Update - I stripped the two original doors to find that they were completely a write off. But the good news is that I bought a set of lovely doors on eBay and they arrived yesterday, so Yippee.

all timber will move, and also timber these days is not as dry as it was years ago, moisture content only at about 18% ideally 12% is best

aupickup wrote: timber these days is not as dry as it was years ago

why is that, dude?

They don't make trees like they used to!



sorry only joking

time and money
years ago most timber was air seasoned, this these days would take up valuable storage space and costly
so timber now is mostly kiln dried and quite rapidly, so when the timber comes out of kiln say at 18% moisture content and then copmes in the open air it quickly absorbs moisture so moisture content increases to say 20to 22 %
you can buy good quality air dried ash, but it comes at a price

now there are certain types of building say barns etc that green oak was used
now green oak is very wet, this makes it easier to make joints.
when green oak was used in barns, the joints became tighter the drier the timber got over the years

I've always had to part-close both doors so they meet before pushing them home, regardless of the season. Figured it was just a quirk and all Travellers did it.

I've always had to part-close both doors so they meet before pushing them home

Funnyly enough so do I. I was told that it was the doors absorbing moisture and expanding, hence the need to join them together like that. But that just goes to prove the point above really about the poorer quality of drying. I have two new doors waiting to be fitted, and i'll probably have to do the same with those too ? Time will tell.

My last Traveller didnt suffer from this issue, but after reading this I checked my current one which is kept in a garage at the moment and hasnt been outside recently and guess what the doors seem to suffer from this as well and I am am sure it was fine before and the car is in the dry, so something else to check out.