Morris Minor Owners Club

I thought I should introduce myself before pestering you with questions.

I'll start off by saying I know absolutely nothing about Morris Minors, or any Brit car for that matter, but I'm hoping to learn a lot. I've worked on a '73 Karmann Ghia and a '67 Volvo 122s. I'm currently working on a '65 Ford Econoline and a '48 Chevy coupe, and drive a '59 Chevy.

Why am I here then? My wife just bought a '58 Morris Minor 1000. She's no stranger to building cars. She built this '51 Chevy a couple of years ago...



and she used to race an RX7, but neither of us know diddly about the Minor.

The current plan under consideration is to stuff a 4A-GE in there.

Here's the bugger as it sat in a Texas field





Here it is in the garage



Ooh! Racing stripes!



Little 4 banger


Here it is next to my 48 Chevy coupe.



Elizabeth has already torn down half of the front of the car. It's remarkably solid. About 3/4 of the floors are shot, but the rockers are good. The windshield has a couple of bullet holes in it and so does the body. It came from Texas afterall! We know we're going to need a new hood and wheels (and I already found them).

Welcome to the forum ! You can fill in your location in your profile - although you have already told us Tx - but it's a biggish place - I used to live in Houston! And I didn't see any Minors around. I like the bullet holes - we only do 'stick-on' ones here, well most of the time anyway. Looks like quite a project you have there - you can download a manual for the car from here http://homeweb.mah.se/~lurija/morrisminor.pdf always useful!

Actually, I'm in Chicago. The car came from Texas (near Dallas). My location is in my profile, but it's not showing up on the board.

Wow - long way to move it! Good luck with the project - always someone on duty here to answer your Qs.

welcome to the forum.

looks like you are both serial car nuts! should fit in here well.

Front grille could be a bit difficult to straighten out
But seriously, nice find and good luck !!

Welcome. Oh boy that Minor looks exciting, was the original owner Al Capone by any chance ? I think you are going to be asking us many questions somehow. Looks like it has a van bonnet (hood) ,no side flashes present. Best of luck with, regards, Charlie.

the good thing about the damaged grille is... she doesn't like it anyway and wants to fabricate her own!

The car was cheap and I found a friend who was coming our way with an empty spot, so shipping was cheap. The motor turns over easily, but is missing most of the distributor, etc. She wants a little more reliable power from the car.

I found a '70 MGB rear end for it just down the road. I've heard that will be stout enough, but I'm not sure about the dimensions. I need to measure tonight.

The wheels and hood are badly rusted, but I found replacements. The floors... well... there are no floors. All the glass is good except for the 2 bullet holes in the front windshield. Ah, Texas. It sat in a field for 30 years, so it's actually in pretty good and complete shape

The MGB axle does fit however your standard wheels won't fit cause the PCD is different, unless, of course, you modify it I've got a couple of spare dizzy's if you get stuck but I guess you can source them locally OK?

Welcome to the Minor world. You'll either get completely hooked or move on. Besides the online help, we also have a US based club out of Ohio. E-mail MORRISMINR@AOL.COM
With what you have you can do anything from pure stock to a nicely updated daily driver, or to a full blown custom.

PSL184 wrote:The MGB axle does fit however your standard wheels won't fit cause the PCD is different,

what's a PCD?
I'm not too worried about the wheels since the ones on the car are shot. I found some stock replacements, but if they won't work with the MGB rear, I'll have to look for something else. I understand the Morris bolt pattern is an odd one and hard to find good custom wheels for it (at least here in the States)

Yeah PCD = Bolt Pattern
4" on a Minor and difficult to find over here too !!!!

PCD = Pitch Circle Diameter. The diameter of a circle passing through the centre of the wheel bolt / stud holes. In the case of a four hole wheel it is the distance between the centres of diagonal holes.

The MGB is 4.5" PCD by the way! There may be a way to fit MGB discs and hubs on the front -I think that has been done before - then you would obviously use MGB wheels all round!

I'm getting the rear axle from a wrecked MGB, so the disks, spindles, hubs, etc may still be good, too.

Anyone know if they'll swap over for sure? If so, what parts do I need? I should be picking the rear up this weekend.

Grab all you can anyway - I'm sure someone has found a way to fit them - but by no means a straight swap!

Minors are all about basic engineering so if you can find your way around a car fairly well you can make pretty much anything fit if you want it to.....

best of luck mate