I've always loved pick-ups and since m step-father bought me a Morris minor when i was 15 and i restored it to concourse and sold it whe I was 17, I wanted another Minor - sad eh! So I set about finding something I could really cannibalise as i hate destroying mint condition classics. The pictures show just how bad this car is. Got it on ebay around my 19th birthday for around £54 and I had to travel 310 miles to collect! Far from stock, masses of rust (terminal really)), PAS and Disk brake conversion, horrible T-bar conversion, this car used to run a highly tuned MGB engine, then the previous owner had fited an Lancia twin camm.
I sat the vehicle outside my fathers garage business for a couple of months whilst I finished off stripping and flooring a spare building then painted it, added electrics/lighting then moved it in:
Started dis-assembly on the vehicle when I had spare time, buying pieces now and again as some of the interior panels on the front end will remain standard(ish):
After a couple more months had some storage issues with other projects etc in the little workshop so emptied my workshop again and cleared everything away. The picture below shows a couple of the little bikes/quads/peds etc that were blocking work area. So I had to clear another storage shed bigger than this to store all 20 odd bikes/vehicles:
Before I put the vehicle back in ( now without floors/back/doors etc ) I pressure washed and steam cleaned the shell to prevent more massive piles of loose rust forming under the work areas.
Ordered some panels such as standard inner wheel panles, A-panels and Internal kidney panels, which will give me a good basis for measurements before cutting into them to modify and widen the shell before seperating it from its old chassis and putting it on its new one I'm designing:
another few weeks passed then i started more de-construction, taking the modified suspension off etc, stuff i'll never use again:
^ Last pic shows carefully removed inner arches lol ^
First real mistake was to start repairing the windscreen surround, as I later found a replacement standard 1-piece roof (which I need due to the gay T-bar roof) and full rust-free surround. It was a time consuming process with no repair panels available and convex and concave curves:
Found a 1 piece fibreglass front which will be a good basis again for my modified flip-front end. I can widen it by 6" then create a buck and cast the new carbon/kevlar piece when the time comes. This piece was in portsmouth, and a friend brought it up to cumbria for me in the back of his Brand New Focus ST, which it JUST fitted into. I gave him a saw and told him if it needs cut, cut it perfectly stright down the centre-line, nonetheless it squeezed in
Got some more work done on the moggy over the past couple of weeks, not much as I havnt had that much time. Sorry about the quality of pictures, didnt clean my camera lense:
Front Kidney panel cut-out (can you guess why its called that??
This should help if not, old vs new:
Got to love replacement panels ^ the new ones 15mm longer than the original one >:(
Then I decided I could remove the back panel As it was only tacked together (previous owner) with box section and angle iron
Thats how the car is at the minute, hope to do more when the new full dome inner arches arrive but they're on back-order. I cant spot the new kidney panels into place until I have them as a datum.
Jordan
P.S. Lifted this off another forum incase theres anything out of place
I'll take pictures for you and post them when im not on site
