Morris Minor Owners Club

Lo there, im going to finally start my restoration. Ive had my minor for a few months now. I really haven’t done much in the time. It got a new air filter, and no seats on it, thats all. So im now going to officially start. Well the engine wont, but new ignition coil if on its was(Old one is faulty, works some times sometimes it doesn’t). Anybody have any advice in what order to do things?. I figure first that i will remove the body panels, doors, and boot. Then do structural work followed by welding the floor.

I don’t have much time a day to work on it, except weekends, ill have maybe only an hour or two a day. Would love it have it moving and stopping though . It a 1969 1 liter 2 door, which when finished will be either black or Trafalgar blue.

So any advice in what order to do my restoration, im looking to make a tick chart to put on my wall and make myself have deadlines.

First step is complete thorough audit of the bodyshell - to determine exactly what needs replacing so there are no nasty and hopelessly expensive 'discoveries' half way through. I would start with the main crossmember in the middle of the car - and the chassis legs that run forward from there. Then sills - one side at a time - then the rear chassis legs and rear suspension mounts - and then floor pans/boot floor/engine bay tie-plates and so on. Engine running is the very least of the worries!

I like to do the engine first ,if it does not start, I will make that my number one...I enjoy driving restos about two foot and then reverse two foot...

Rust is probably important too....

what kind of restoration do you intend on doing?? I mean cosmetic of complete?

if its a complete then what you need to do is strip it down to nothing and assess the condition of the body. panels are replaceable but fixing bodies requires good panelbeating skills. once the body is structually sound then i would be test fitting any large modifications. dont paint before doing stuff like engine transplants or anything like that because last thing you want to do is weld up new paint!!

i would fit stuff like telescopic shockabsorbers and a remote brake booster just to bring it up to a more modern standard.

once mods are sorted and body panels are sorted and properly aligned then assess the condition of hte paint on stuff, if its in good nick and so is any filler underneath it then you could get away with a good sand before sending it to the painter, otherwise you might have to bare-metal it. I would definetely recommend having a sandblaster do all the fiddly stuff like door shuts, seams and other stuff that you cant sand down. under the sill covers make sure that its all very well rust protected. fish-o-line the crap out of it under there!!

once paint is on then put the panels back on and start reassembling and refurbishing/replacing parts where necessary.

there is a restoration manual for the morris minor, i think haynes publish it, that is probably a very good thing to have on the coffee table

In addition to the comments above I would set some small jobs aside to do as your restoration goes along. I found (as many other people do judging by the number of abandoned restorations for sale) that doing the big jobs are fine but you can lose motivation. You never seem to making any headway and it just seems to go on for ever especially if you only get to spend a few hours here and there on it. So with a selection of small jobs if you find your enthusiasm on the slide you can start and finish a small job quickly which always gives me a nice boost, as I am able to cross a job off the list.

charlie_morris_minor wrote:In addition to the comments above I would set some small jobs aside to do as your restoration goes along. I found (as many other people do judging by the number of abandoned restorations for sale) that doing the big jobs are fine but you can lose motivation. You never seem to making any headway and it just seems to go on for ever especially if you only get to spend a few hours here and there on it. So with a selection of small jobs if you find your enthusiasm on the slide you can start and finish a small job quickly which always gives me a nice boost, as I am able to cross a job off the list.

That's a really good idea, simple but effective, I like
It's easy to loose enthusiasm with big jobs, especially in this weather.

I suspect the restos fail - because part way through another huge problem appears - hence my suggestion to throughly audit the whoile car before doing any work. Make the engine run if you wish - but it's really not important.
I bought a Minor (for spares) a few years back - had been standing outdoors for ages - they proudly told me they had 'de-coked' the cylinder head! The car was so badly rotted it broke it's back as we winched it on the trailer! So - don't waste time on trivialities - body shell is ALL important.