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Minor Traveller in production

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:11 am
by Leo
Another of the British Leyland Photos that came with my recently aquired 1969 Traveller

Was the traveller produced at Cowley?

Leo


Image

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:15 am
by Leo
And another photo showing assembly of Traveller Body

Image

Leo

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:24 am
by alex_holden
Wow, very cool pictures. Keep them coming! It looks like there was a lot of skilled manual labour involved in the assembly.

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:58 am
by dave1949
And another photo showing assembly of Traveller Body
Which shows the door handle vertical? was that the way they should be, have been told it was whoever fitted them at the time of assembly? :roll:

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:36 pm
by Orkney
Ah but you dont know if it's locked / shut on the handle :-)

Fantastic photos by the way !!!

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 2:20 pm
by dave1949
Ah but you dont know if it's locked
British Leyland would def lock the door for security???? :wink:

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:35 pm
by jonathon
Aye, but the bloke in black is smoking, fag in left hand, good o'l health and safety :lol:

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 5:30 pm
by Kevin
Which shows the door handle vertical? was that the way they should be,
I was always told that in the locked position it should be down as in the photo and horizontal when open as its the natural position to hold then handle when opening and closing the door, if it was the opposite the open position would be vertical with the handle up which is not a natural position to hold it when opening the door.
Great photo's by the way.

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 9:49 pm
by chrisw
Seem to remember reading somewhere that some Travellers were made at Abingdon for a while - presumably the MG works? - and were preferred by the BMC dealers as being a better job? Can anyone confirm?

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:11 pm
by Leo
Chris

Yes, my understanding is that Travellers were assembled at the Abingdon MG Works to compensate for the seasonal American export market demand for Sports Cars.
I used to go to the Annual MG Gathering in Abingdon and there were always Morris Travellers there.
I think it is fair to say that Abingdon assembled vehicles in general were thought to be of a better quality than those assembled at Cowley or Longbridge
The question we must ask is how do you tell where a particular Traveller was assembled, Abingdon, Cowley or Longbridge ?

Leo (South Oxfordshire)

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:45 am
by Kevin
The question we must ask is how do you tell where a particular Traveller was assembled, Abingdon, Cowley or Longbridge ?
If there is such a thing only production records from the plant itself would reveal the answer to that but, its certainly an intriguing question.

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:13 am
by paulhumphries
I love pictures like these.

An uncle used to work at Longbridge and I've heard numerous stories about poor quality in early 70's so wonder how Red Robbo's followers would have bodged up Minors of he's been active in 60's ?
One story was on the Mini production line the workers were either side of the car.
It wasn't uncommon for vehicles to be made with different items, like brakes, on either side !
The attitude was it's be sorted out by someone else further down the line.

Paul Humphries

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:43 am
by Pyoor_Kate
I was chatting to a chap from the VVOC (he brought me a new engine, the star); and his friend worked at a dealership doing the pre delivery inspections. This friend sent back a HA / Beagle van near the end of their production run because it'd landed up with a brake disk on one side and a drum on t'other at the front.

Apparently it wasn't uncommon for their last vans to be fitted with completely random sets of parts, because it was cheaper to get the vans off the line in whatever state than to stop the line to fix a problem (like the unavailability of one particular part).

Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 1:48 pm
by badfelafel
Love those photos - thanks for sharing them :)