Morris Minor Owners Club

hi everyone
taken kick plate off (rotten) to reveal even more rust. my car has 12 mounths mot
what sould i do???? will it affect anything????????? <br><br>

and this is the passenger side<br><br>

Mine was like this Andrew, if you have an MOT then you can do running repairs. Fortunately this bit is hidden from the MOT man so unless the bottom sill was soft, he would have no reason to fail it.

It's an easy repair, the top of the panel looks strong, so you could buy a new boxing panel and just use the bottom section. Just make sure the bits you weld are of bright shiney metal. Also to maintain the cars shape I wouldn't recommend doing it on a jack, keep the car on it's wheels.

will it affect the strength of the car or is it cosmetic?????

The sills are an important structural part of the car; if the rot hadn't been hidden by the kick plates it would have failed the MOT.

do you know how much it would be for the welding??????
and is it ok to drive around for the time being????? how bad is it????

That looks sadly familiar.

With mine looking in a similar state I was able to just replace the upright (boxing?) panel with the round holes in it, cutting it short at the top and welding to the good metal that remained. So what Dean said basically. A (long) afternoon's work.

If the outer sill on the driver's side needs replacing too then I'd suggest doing that after the upright panel rather than cutting out the whole lot and running the risk of everything drooping. A less pleasant job as it involves welding upside down.

All quite do-able with a little gasless MIG, angle grinder and repair panels though.

Problem is - there will NOT be good bright metal to weld to and the job will grow and grow. It needs fixing - it will break it's back if left un-attended. Gentle use (ie - don't fill the car with fat mates!) will be ok meantime - while you plan how to fix it!

on the way to car shows we have 4 in it and a boot load of stuff on several occations.
could the sill collapse with the weight as it is know or will it be ok for the time being?????? whats your opinion?????

I would NOT take any weight beyond driver (on strict diet) and perhaps one lightweight passenger - and minimse all other weight until this is properly fixed. And avoid speed bumps/hump bridges/rough roads etc etc !

I did a temp repair on one of mine in this area until I could take it all apart to replace the panels - It will keep you going for a while....

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How do you avoid speed humps? The bloody things are everywhere.

Andrew, do exactly what PSL has done. It could be a good opportunity to learn how to weld ;). When you get time to take it off the road... then do it properly with repair panels. Find a local steel merchants and ask them for some 1.5mm steel a sheet to do that should cost no more than a tenner. Some even offer off cuts for free as they sell this stuff by the weight (be cheeky and ask). The other problem is getting the welder... if a mate has one just buy him some welding wire and a beer for the trouble. That way you could get it done if you weld it yourself for about £20..

Repairing these cars doesn't have to be expensive.

Is any car that isn't up to concours standard a death trap?

The passenger doesn't look too bad at all, the drivers side is a bit ropey but still better than most I've seen and a lot less bodged up than lots of Minors.

These cars were over engineered not made to last 3 or 5 years.

Go with PSLs plan and don't loose any sleep about it.

I agree - that patch-up plan looks fine - if there is enough good metal to weld to.

there will NOT be good bright metal to weld to

I agree - that patch-up plan looks fine

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is it ok to drive around for the time being????? how bad is it????

It's absolutely fine - unless you're in a bad crash that bends the shell. In which case the shell is bent anyway. Probably a LOT of Minors are in the same state. The weaker shell is obviously not how it's meant to be though!

If you don't need it to be perfectly pretty then some angle iron will add structure back (PSL's picture is a fair example). On the drivers side there's no point doing a pretty repair until the whole sill is replaced anyway.

Forget the scaremongers - Just don't make it into a convertible!

The patch up is 'fine' (for a patch up!) - because it welds on to metal that looks ok - whereas the metal where a new boxing plate would weld on does not look at all good.

andrew.searston wrote:will it affect the strength of the car or is it cosmetic?????

It will seriously affect the strength of the car, it is definitley not cosmetic.

These box structures carry the majority of the forces on the car ... personally I would not drive a car in this condition at all, it may not fold itself in half, but it may distort the shell.

So, speaking form experience, how many Minor 2dr saloons have people had where the shell distorted due to a rotten boxing plate?

I've bought many with this problem and none had distorted shells.