Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi all! Thought I would post a couple of pictures of my ongoing project - which was going to take a couple of months and is now over two years. You know how it is! ;)

I've totally stripped down the body shell and have been chipping away at repairing rust spots. The big job was replacing the front half of both front chassis legs and the front cross member, and then I had to repair a lot of small fiddly bits. Of course I had no idea when I started, but now I think I am getting the hang of the welder!

Anyway, the underside had a lot of surface rust and little paint, and since there are a lot of nooks and crannies I decided to send it off to a professional sand blaster. The guy was recommended to me because he had a suitable rig - not too powerful! He joked that if you sent a car off to the serious industrial sand blasters there would be no car left.

I've attached a couple of pictures. I am very pleased with the results! It took the guy 1 hour to do the underside, wheel arches and sills. He charges $200 per hour of blasting time. So for $200, all the really bad bits are back to nice shiny metal. I think that's well worth it! It would have taken me months and not been nearly as good.

I gave him some two-part epoxy paint which is supposed to be very good, which he was going to spray on this afternoon. I can't wait to see the result![frame][/frame]

Here's the 'Before' shot...[frame][/frame]

Great stuff! Bodyshell condition looks great.

Wish we were that lucky in the UK!

BTW, your 4-door would either be 1956 or 1966, not 1936. The 1936 Morris Minor is an entirely different car.

chickenjohn wrote:Great stuff! Bodyshell condition looks great.

Wish we were that lucky in the UK!

BTW, your 4-door would either be 1956 or 1966, not 1936. The 1936 Morris Minor is an entirely different car.

Thanks for pointing out that typo (now edited)... it should be 1963!

The rust turned out to be worse than I initially thought (isn't that a familiar story!), as I certainly wasn't planning on replacing chassis legs, and I wouldn't have started if I had known!. However, it's been a great learning experience and also quite satisfying.

It's actually pretty tidy compared to some pictures I have seen on this forum, though. I've seen some that I would be scared to drive - espcially with rust around the suspension mounts and other critical parts of the chassis. I want to be able to chuck it into a corner or swerve to avoid someone, and be confident the wheels will stay on (and the handling will be no worse than it was originally, at least)!

We have a safety test every 6 months here (Warrant Of Fitness) and they are very tough on rust. Any rust bigger than a small coin in the chassis rails, pillars, roof edge, or near door hinges and suspension mounts will result in a fail. I think failing a WOF due to rust has probably killed most Japanese cars made in the 80s and also a lot of "everyday classics" like the morries.

I am confident that mine is structurally sound now if not exactly perfect from an appearance point of view. Looking forward to seeing how the bottom looks when the painting is done!

Looks absolutely excellent! I hope mine will come up so nice...though I won't be sandblasting, I'll be doing the job manually...

The final bill is in (and paid): $450 NZD for the work, plus $240 for the paint (of which there is 3-4 litres left). It was a little more expensive than I hoped but it was still worth it.

Attached is a picture of it painted. It looks so nice and shiny![frame][/frame]