Morris Minor Owners Club

any one had any experience of fitting rear saloon wings , genuine or pattern what is beat

many thanks dennis

For what its worth an the basis of what i've heard... personally if i could afford it there would be no coice whatsoever and it would be genuine every time, and not just panels.

is this repro genuine , and are they a good fit

Go for Heritage panels whenever possible. The difference in quality is like chalk and cheese.

and are the heritage pnes a good fit, and any particular supplier

Heritage rear wings are better quality steel (thicker) however they fit as badly as the leading pattern ones from LMC. If doing the job DIY then this only wastes your time, if getting a pro bodyshop to fit them, then allow 3 hours labour to make them fit well and get the headlight radius somewhere near to the outer headlamp bezel. This advice not only goes for the rear wings but most of them, at all costs avoid the ones from the far east and the biggest Minor dealership in the country, they are generally a worse fit, a poor excuse for decent metal and have a deep layer of rust beneath the thick primer. If you have bought or are building a car with these latter items then expect a 5 year lifespan before you need to replace them, (if your'e lucky) all advice based on building Minors for over 20 years, 15 as a pro bodyshop, and several hundred cars down the line.

thanks jonathon, have not bought any rear ones yet
trying to get nos ones first, or good seconf hand ones
are the rear wings that bad as well, heritage ones that is , and what would be needed to correct fit
i am not doing it myself

We have refurbished a few unwelded original cars this year on which the wings were a perfect fit from one to the other. The Heritage o/s/r wing was 1" short, ie if it aligned at the front then the rear of the wing would be around 1" up the boot aperture panel. The radius of the wing flange is also a little wayward. To make the wing fit we needed to cut just above the strengthening strip at the rear base of the wing all the way to the start of the wheel arch, lower this section down and weld in a gusset. You may have noticed that lots of cars at the National exhibited this problem, easy to spot but slightly masked by the rear bumper valance. The radius of the saloon wing where it butts up to the rear 1/4 panel (between the B post and wing) is also incorrect and the vertical section which should align to the 1/4 panel is too short. Some of you may not be too bothered about these problems, but I'm afraid that we do. The LMC front wings, at least the last batch, are awful and I'm informed that from the shape of the wings and the sharp edges that the tooling is extremely worn.However my gripe with these front wings is the quality of construction, mis aligned headlight fitting,mis shaped radius around headlight, incorrect spacing of front plate on wing which caused the mis shaping of the wing skin. and the hinge post cover fitting panel badly fitted , meaning that the wing skin is 10mm inside that of the door skin. We have in the past drilled our all of the spot welds and brazing and re jigged the wings on the car. Having said this I understand that LMC's answer is, well its a cheap wing, my view is 'well charge a bit more and do it properly'

thanks jonathon, my car is unwelded and all the wings are original, but need repairing i am wondering do i repair the wings i have
oh boy lets pay a bit more and have them to fit

Quite agree Dennis ,but it'll never happen,too much cost to tool up for such a limited market, its an unfortunate fact that Minor owners do not wish to spend the money on their cars via good quality parts, which is why we are in the mess we are in now. Cannot see any traders investing in the £30K needed just to press one wing, bootlids a further £40K etc etc , not even the club could afford the vast amounts required to reproduce just the most basic panels most often required..
I'd repair the wings you have Dennis

yes it is a sad fact that the minor owners will not spend on good quality parts
and it does make restoration a tricky one

oh well thats life i guess
happy xmas and c u at the rally next year

i had new wings fitted by the largest dealer one of them the headlight does not fit too well ill have heritage ones next time

When I did my traveller, the front wings were pattern. At the time I didn't realise the difference till it was to late. one was to short and didn't match the door line, and the other was to long, this makes the front panel look all bent or the door gaps worse than awful. Neither headlight rim match's the wing. Money and knowledge were tight and had to live with it. My van has Heritage wings and i'm very happy with those, it's worth spending the time to make the panel gaps look right, and my traveller will be getting heritage wings soon but doesn't sound like I should have high expectations though.

You hit the nail right on the head there Jonathon, I for one, and sounds like Dennis aswell, would be quite prepared to pay the price for quality parts that fit and last like the originals. It's a shame there are so few of us out there as this will be the end to such a big following. If restored cars are only lasting 5 years before needing more serious work again people are going to give up, but unfortunatley thats what we get for living in an impatient and disposable world.

yes it is a sad fact that the minor owners will not spend on good quality parts
and it does make restoration a tricky one

More a fact of life in general than tight fisted minor owners.
Its a problem of general demand. I used to be able to buy new 'Fiesta' wings from Ford for half the price of heritage wings for the minor. (granted they're probably easier to make).

What we need is more Minor owners.

'More a fact of life in general than tight fisted minor owners.'

I'm afraid to disagree on this one. The problem stems from the Minor being a 'survival' car in the late 70-80's. This was fine when original parts were generally still available and the majority of minors only required cosmetic of minor structural work. Unfortunately this romantic notion saw out the 80's and fell into the 90's where original parts were either non existent of at least thin on the ground. Owners continued to believe that these were still cheap and cheerful cars and so were reluctant to pay for the retention of quality parts. The likes of Hadrian,Veng,etc fullfilled this cheap end of the market, whilst it was largely left up to Henrics to plough the quality route. Unfortunately Henrics sold out to LMC Hadrian which then only left the recently available Heritage parts. and the C.Ware far east panels. Leaving the future in LMC and Heritage's hands was a double edged sword. Lmc are a major panel house concentrating on modern or more recent parts, which means that the Minor market is small change and tooling up for new items must be very low on their agenda. The prices of their Minor panels is still very low for a midrange product. Even Heritage prices are low despite the fact that they own quite a lot of the original tooling and most perceiving that they provide a better product.
I'm not sure if our cars future is in safe hands,and I feel generally that we are slipping beyond the point of no return.
I had a long debate with a major supplier, my view being that if you supply a cheap cheerful product then the demand for the better one will subside, as most Minor owners want the cheapest products available. Once the demand for quality is lost the manufacturer will pull the plug or not invest in new tooling because the returns are not there, so we end up in the position now, where we are getting exactly what the market has demanded. I admit a few on here will be prepared to pay more for better quality but who is going to supply it ?
Some well meaning companies like ESM ,Bull Motif are trying to lift the quality of parts with their own panels and parts, but they are not in a position for major investment due to the massive set up costs and long term payback.
Sorry if my view is a bit pessimistic and not a usual rose tinted chocolate box image too often portrayed by the more conservative owners and to some extent the MMOC.

i for one would pay a bit more for better fit etc as opposed to paying a bit less for really unfit panels and the like

But it will not happen Dennis the slippery slope is becoming a distant vision. We in the trade have been asking for years, when the decline was spotted. If manufacturers will not listen to their primary customers what hope is there ?

i know it wont happen

you know a very simialar thing is happening in my trade as well

Thanks that does explain quite a lot of what I have seen. BTW is it true or an urban myth that on the original production line they offered up doors until they found a decent fit?.

...then put any which didn't look too good on the LCV pile