Morris Minor Owners Club

I had a poke around the free Moggy this afternoon to assess the amount of work that's going to be required. Some of what I found was rather depressing - not just the usual rust, but plenty of bad workmanship too. What's worrying is that at least some of this was carried out recently by a "classic car specialist" who charged the previous owner £75 an hour. One of the invoices from this "specialist" says the jacking points are unsafe and recommends jacking under "the front or rear axle" instead. Send me a PM if you would like to know the name of this garage as the forum rules prevent me from doing so publicly.

Rotten sills reinforced with what looks like heavy duty Dexion angle. I guessed there would be something nasty hidden under there when I realised the covers were glued and riveted on. Note also the modification made to raise the height of the driver's seat.



The worst bit is where a patch on the end of the crossmember has been bodged on top of the earlier sill bodge. The cover was welded to the whole mess at this point too.


Apparently this patch was roughly welded on over a rust hole to get it through the last MOT.


Here is where the nearside wing is attached. Notice anything missing? Like bolts... The other problem is that the inner wing you can see here has been bodged on in places without cutting out the old rotten inner wing, leaving a double skin.


Some more of that £75 an hour work, to replace part of the offside inner wing and wheel arch. Yes, the bolts are too small. No, I don't know what they're screwed to - I suspect he's drilled right through both skins and put a nut on the inside. I had a quick poke around inside, noticed the kidney panel had been repaired with fibreglass, and recoiled in horror.

Bodged to heck then. Oh well, it was a freebie (grrrrr, I wanted it!)

he bolts are too small. No, I don't know what they're screwed to

Pint says there is no nut on the back of those - look remarkably like tec screws - self tappers sometimes with built in pilot drill used in a torque gun.

A taste of the sort of work found (IME) on LCVs, then, Dexion and all... At least yours still has *some* of the original metal in the sills
a

Orkney wrote:

he bolts are too small. No, I don't know what they're screwed to

Pint says there is no nut on the back of those - look remarkably like tec screws - self tappers sometimes with built in pilot drill used in a torque gun.

If you're right that probably means he's replaced the rear inner wing with a piece of plain sheet without the captive nuts.

Dan_Harris wrote:Bodged to heck then. Oh well, it was a freebie (grrrrr, I wanted it!)

I know, musn't grumble (too much)!

well, If you want to put the sill covers back on I will take it off you!

I've seen far worse, although not for £75 an hour!
On Relfy's car, a London Minor centre charged a much more sensible hourly rate to put filler in the ends of the new sill (it couldn't be welded the inner wings as they were moth eaten so they just filled this important structural area).

This free car seems to have far less filler and fibreglass in imprtant areas than some Ive seen sold for £££'s

The Dexion looks like previous bodging - neatly done.
PM me the name of the 'classic specialist' please !

Yes, PM me the name of the specialist. The techniques used (panels welded on over rust) looks very familliar to the car I'm (gradually) bringing back to life ATM (Dibble).

I expect you'll have to re-build most of the A pillars too. Layers of patches on rust just breeds and even bigger rust sandwich.

Still, it was a free car and you are a good welder/restorer so don't give up!

PMs sent.

I think the bodges are solid enough to survive a while longer yet (I jumped up and down on the middle of the sills and they didn't flex) so I'm not going to start on a major rebuild until after this year's rally season. The plan is to get it running reliably and comfortably so I can switch to using it as my daily driver while I take Fenchurch off the road to do a few jobs I've been putting off. By the time the LEO and AIR come round I want to have them both running well enough that I could confidently take either one.

Lol at the tiny bolts with huge repair washers.

When my captive nuts rusted away I drilled them out and fitted rivnuts to the same locations.
If you're going to bodge - at least bodge with some consideration to originality.

Thanks Alex for the PM, its a different company but sadly familliar tale of woeful work standards. Good plan, run the car for now and restore later. It looks like its up to MOT standards annd may actually last a few years of daily use before the rust breaks through again. I expect , being a saloon, you'll have to cut the rear wing mounting flange out of the inner wing and repair that.

Keep us posted!

P.S. taking a leaf out of "Spag"'s book, saving for a plasma cutter might be a good idea to slice through all those multiple welded on patches. Nothing eats cutting disks like a rust and bodged patch sandwich.

Trouble is the plasma cutter can't work if there is a gap between layers of metal.

It will happily cut one layer but will leave the next layer down relativly untouched.

To be fair you need to cut outside the poor multiple panels so you just keep going wider till you go clean through.

Mmm, plasma... Don't think I haven't been tempted. The ability to only cut through one layer at a time sounds like an advantage to me - less likelihood of accidentally cutting through something on the other side.

Here's another view of the nearside inner wing:


And here is the reason why the engine vibrated so much on the motorway:



The stabiliser bracket isn't attached to the body in any way. Bear in mind this engine was fitted by a "specialist" 15 months ago and it's only done a handful of miles since.

...drum roll....waiting for the pics from the chassis legs.....*theme from "Jaws" in the background.....

The chassis legs are covered in underseal which I daren't remove yet. The front nearside has been damaged slightly in a bump at some point and rather roughly repaired. The crossmember ends don't look too clever (patches over patches).

Horrible. Have a sedative before you go underneath in order to preserve your calm.... /R

The cutter I have has a parting cut of 12mm, 2 sheets and a gap is a bit different, though if the gap is only a couple of mm, and you crank up the amps, then the jet of hot stuff out the back of the first sheet is still pretty fierce !!

If anyone's interested I'll do some scientific 'gapped sheet' testing at the weekend ???