Morris Minor Owners Club

Hello everyone!

This is my first post here as a traveller seems to be on the cards for restoration

It belonged to a friend who had in on the road for some time and the main gripe of his was the lack of power. The 1275 conversion seems like a nice popular conversion and I am familiar with these engines. However, I notice that MG engines are generally favoured for ease of installation

How readily available are they and what is the ball park going rate on a ready engine?

There is never mention of mini donor engines. Obviously the gearbox dangling off the bottom of the engine won't help but are they too much effort to modify for a morris to bother with? i.e if one became available would it be worth going for it or holding out for the MG version?

Many thanks for help and wish me luck with the project!

Easy enough to convert a Marina or Ital 1275. MG engines are getting a bit thin on the ground these days.....

Marina and Ital 1275 engines very similar to the MG 1275, not worth paying extra for the MG one. Unfortunately a mini engine would need significant modification, and the mini crank cant be used anyway, so thats not an option either. Remember the standard 998 or 1098 can be fitted with the 1275 head, bigger carb etc to give more power without swapping for 1275.

Worry more about the 'restoration' - and just get it fit for use with whatever engine is in at the moment. You will want to improve the brakes before getting too far into increasing the power.

Indeed- Get the brakes sorted first!! Spridget engines are getting rare, and the cylinder heads even more so due to their tendency to crack across the valve seats... Marina/Ital lumps are probably not far behind for rarity now, and need the Moggy flywheel re-drilling(with debatable location due to the spigot size difference!) to mate up with the standard moggy gearbox, or some not insignificant mods to make the huge Marina bellhousing and gearbox fit! Main problem seems to be the steering rack getting in the way, and the starter, and the transmission tunnel, and the propshaft being wrong....
The Mini lump won't mate with the inline gearbox unless you start on major engineering! The Maestro 1275 is possibly the last development of this series, which was tuned for torque, economy, and power in a balanced way when BL knew its days were numbered, but again, this needs work to mate up with an inline box!
Hence the appeal for many of throwing a 1275 cylinder head on the 1098 engine. Very little real effort (well documented), and with a good exhaust system and inlet manifold/carb it will put out nearly as much as a 1275 without having to port anything out or sort out any mating up problems!

Many thanks for the feedback. Food for thought...

Certainly there is plenty of other work that is taking higher priority but so far I am getting my head round that stuff fairly well without help. I'm sure there will be plenty of questions in the future......

My standard drums always coped well with my 1275 engine in normal driving.

It was completely standard and they were 'as new' having been rebuilt.
Had a few close calls but only through personal stupidty, braking too late and driving like a twonk (is that word filtered?) .

Your insurance company might not be too impressed that you are using standard brakes.