Morris Minor Owners Club

As a lot of you will know Sidney is currently in the middle of restoration, if I can fix my paint gun and we get some nice weather he will be treated to a respray.
As I'm restoring him to original(ish) specification regarding the colour, engine etc.. I was thinking it would be a nice idea to get rid of the stuck on indicators and hide them somewhere.
Heres what he looked like before I started



maybe I could move the indicators on the rear wings to some where more discrete like Mogwai has done;


and use the old style lights on the front similar to the famous Sophie;


Bearing in mind that everything is coming off for the respray and the front sidelight units need replacing anyway do you think it is worth doing this to make the car look much more original or should I just leave them as the are?

Ps, sorry for using other peoples car photos without asking permission!

My opinion is... your car, your resto.... do whatever you want too

Yep - but hiding them under the rear bumper doesn't make them very visible for others following.

For the front, one neat option is to use orange bulbs in a clear side side light. I did this on my SII Traveller by having Mini style side lights in the headlights.

On the rear it's nice to see the clean lines of the original lights, but ytou need to make sure the under bumper indicators are obvious (a good 20Watt indicator is not that hard to miss, but if they are low then may not be seen by someone tailgating you!) it's your choice...
You could go for 1098 rear lights, under bumper lights, or even above bumper lights mounted from a bumper stud. There's even an option to have additional indicators (e.g. small LED unit) at the corners of the rear windscreen. If you're putting things in the rear screen, then a high level brake light is another option, but it's best to keep them small to avoid blocking your vision and that also makes them less obvious at a show ;-)

As you asked for opinions, and seeing as you taking off everything any way i would favour i would go for out of the box set up, like it was when it was new ( whatever that was)

I Have just removed the indicators which had been fitted to my series II and fitted stop/tail bulbs to the front sidelights using the bulb holders sold on ebay item number 170187868283 using the 21w filament for the indicators 5w for side lights. For the rear I wired a a relay item no 120292213573 which when the trafficators are on cuts off the brake light to the corresponding side and the brake light flashes as an indicator. Additional wiring needs to be done to the indicator circuit to enable these changes.

The rear indicators on mine are hgv marker lights made by Rubbolite. they're mounted level to the edge of bumper to make them as visable as posable its just the photo that makes them look like they're deeper underneath + my traficators still work as well

Ah yes I forgot to mention that, I have new trafficators which will be working aswell.
Mogwai I must say your car looks really nice in that photo, I just hope I can get my paint job to look that shiny!

honda90,

and fitted stop/tail bulbs to the front sidelights

The twin filament front bulb holder was a astandard fitment in 1962 (IIRC late 61 to early 63). Added to this they had the flashing rear brake light. The set up works fine, except that some clueless drivers expect to see a flashing orange light and it can lead to problems if they ignore your signalling!!

what about the bolts that the "young uns" fit with an LED buried in a bolt head? could these be adapted to replace the chrome bolts through the chrome?

Hi Mogwai
Do you know what the part no for the side markers were from Rubbolite
Regards Ian

hi Sidney,

I agree: I, personally, would restore the car to original spec, I think it's very cool

I recently drove a traveller which had the dual filament brake/sidelight/indicator lamps, the ones rayof leamington mentions, around ireland. Happily, even in Ireland (!) there was no problem whatsoever with other drivers twigging what was going on and that car didn't have trafficators, which are even more top cool!

If it's road legal, go for originality if you can - and let us know how you get on!

wibble_puppy wrote:I recently drove a traveller which had the dual filament brake/sidelight/indicator lamps, the ones rayof leamington mentions, around ireland. Happily, even in Ireland (!) there was no problem whatsoever with other drivers twigging what was going on

Fenchurch has later front indicators though. I occasionally have problems with people behind me ignoring my indicators, but it's impossible to tell if they're genuinely confused by the flashing brake lights or just oblivious/inconsiderate.

... or whether you are just driving badly

wibble_puppy wrote:... or whether you are just driving badly

Ouch!

you did drive badly once: following our paddle at Skerries. Your driving was as away with the fairies as my "navigation" lol

ian.mcdougall wrote:Hi Mogwai
Do you know what the part no for the side markers were from Rubbolite
Regards Ian

Hi I got them from an autojumble last year but
theyre the same as the ones on this link http://www.ukautomotive.co.uk/stock.asp?id=257

If it's legal to have a red indicator, you would be building a USA market car. As pointed out the brake light needs to be interrupted for that side indicator. You probably won't find the coresponding relay box. The alternatives would be a couple of diodes or a trailer converter, which converts separate indicators to combined with brake lights. Again probably not common in England but you should be able to find one from a supplier that could ship it to you. I'd say find someone who knows how to wire up the diodes.

jaekl wrote:If it's legal to have a red indicator, you would be building a USA market car. As pointed out the brake light needs to be interrupted for that side indicator. You probably won't find the coresponding relay box. The alternatives would be a couple of diodes or a trailer converter, which converts separate indicators to combined with brake lights. Again probably not common in England but you should be able to find one from a supplier that could ship it to you. I'd say find someone who knows how to wire up the diodes.

The relay box (Lucas DB10) is still available new, though not terribly cheaply. Somewhere on this site are a couple of drawings I did of how to make your own from ordinary automotive relays. Whether it's legal to put flashing brake lights on a car that originally had trafficators is probably a bit of a grey area...

If you want to look after your trafficators the best way is to use them, ie wire them up to the indicator switch. If you want a wiring diagram I can supply.