Morris Minor Owners Club

HI I HAVE A 1964 MORRIS MINOR 2 DOOR IME NOW STARTING TO RESTORE MY MINOR AND HIT PROBLEMS WITH THE CENTRE CROSS MEMBER THIS IS ROTTON ITS HAD REPAIR ENDS DONE BEFORE AND WHAT A BODGE THEY ARE.NOW I CAN WELD BUT CAN ANY ONE GIVE ME ANY TIPS ON WELDING A NEW ONE IN OR ANY PICTURES SHOWING REMOVING THE CROSSMEMBER AND WELDING A NEW ONE IN DONT WANT TO START CUTTING ANYTHING AS YET UNTILL I REALY KNOW WHAT IME NEEDING TO DO ANYWAY HOPE SOME ONE CAN HELP ME HERE CHEERS DAVE

It's a nasty job - which I am dreading! There were some useful posts when I raised the subject a while back - so I suggest you search for it..........

http://www.mmoc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=25271
The above link might help but unfotunately you do just have to get stuck in about it.
Depending on the condition of the chassis legs and floor this can be quite straight forward or you end up doing far more than you expected. I confess to have an "expert" take care of mine and he started by drilling out the spot welds on the inner floor and then he cuts a strip of floor out above the xmember then he tried to cut it away from the chassis legs and cills. The cills were OK but chassis legs were in a pretty poor state so I ended up with new chassis legs, floors, frontxmember and a few other bits and a nice bill.

The car has to be well supported and braced depending on the condition of the car and from memory once we realised the extent of the work Hugh started from the front and worked backwards to the centre xmember as this gave him the correct lines for the chassis legs, quite an operation though I was in a lot of pain watching it being done. If you haven't already the proposhaft, handbrake cables, wiring loom, brake and fuel lines all have to be taken out of the way

Post up some pics and depending on your locallity a member might pop over to give some advice or help.

And the torsion bars.....

There is an excellent how to guide on the club technical manual.

I've never done one myself, but from from the technical manual Rob Thommasson advocates drilling out the spot welds where the chassis legs join the old cross member (chassis leg side) and at the transmission tunnel (from inside the car!)

Measure all the suspension mounting points before you remove it.

Then to free the crossmember from the floor, Ron suggests cutting a strip of floor from inside the car on each floor pan where the crossmember attaches, then cutting the crossmember away from the sills. Then welding a new strip of steel into the gap that now exists between front and rear floorpans.

The new crossmember can be welded to this new strip in the floor as well as back to the transmission tunnel and chassis with plug welds via the spot weld holes that were drilled out to remove the old X member.

As i said, I've never done this job myself, just reading from the club manual.