Morris Minor Owners Club

OK, so now I've established myself as a plonker by uploading my restoration thread on the wrong place

I'll now start again and try to redeam myself.

Hi, I've been working on my 69 Morris now for 8 years. Yes, it really has taken that long, and still not finished, although I now feel like I'm on the home run I've had a lot of delays due to family ill health, funds, and a few technical hitches along the way. I let my membership expire in 2010, but now rejoined to help get the enthusiasm charged up to attempt to finish before next year.

My Moggie started life as a Police panda car in the welsh establishment (So I'm told). When it finished its service, a relative had it for a few years, and some MY FAVOURITE CAR IS A NISSAN SUNNY ran over the roof while drunk during a university party. Trashed the roof, so unfortunately it got chopped. I did toy with attempting to put a replacement roof on, but decied this was to much of a task, so it stays as it is. I went for a barbaque one day at their house, and saw it sitting in the garage, he said it was probably going to the crusher to clear out the garage having sat theire for 8 years. Having built a kit car in the 1980's. I decided I'd take it off his hands much to my wifes dismay. I went home, hired a trailer, fitted a tow hook to my car, and picked it up the following week.

It's had a full floor replacement, chassis rails, rear and front wings, and a celly home respray. Not too bad a finish, but have had problems getting rear wings to fit, I've bonded then in for now, but these will come off and get put right once I get it on the road. Another challange is to get the drivers door to fit better. One of the real motivation distroying moments was when I layed the NEW HERITAGE front wings on the drive in the sun prior to painting to warm up. My wife came home from the weekly food shop and reversed on the drive staight over my new wings. Totally destroying one, the other I've fitted and bashed it out a bit, but it will probably need changing sometime to get the level of finish I'm after. A few pictures attached.




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Any suggestions for the following problems:

Anyone got some advice, how to get the grill to line up with the wing... The Hocky Sticks dont fit... I read someone modified the wings by adding a strip welded in and redrilled to re-align with the wings.. so looks like I got a bit of fettling and re-painting to do unless anyone has any ideas. You can see the wings and grill in the photo above.

I'm replacing the rear wheel hub bearings as the diff leaked when I filled it up, what torque do the centre nut tighten up to on both front and back as I've also relaced the front bearings?

The rear wings had approx 1/4 gap at top of arch, whats the best way to pull these up so they fit correctly, I'm sure the inner wing and curve was OK unless they are a poor fit and the rear wings are correct (I really hope not as this will be a major setback and I may just have to settlye with them as they are).

This picture always makes me feel good, its come along way in 8 years... [frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame]

It looks very tidy.
The first issue is that you need to replace the strength that the roof gave the body, it's a lot!
Take a look at threads about converting saloon to convertibles to get an idea.
It will make it a good car, rather than just a good looking car.

I actually have a spare roof sitting around that I'd love to sell. Postage to Britain would be murder, though.

If I'm interpreting the workshop manual, the torque on those rear hub nuts should be 140 lb. ft. (19.4 kg m). Hockey sticks are awful...best I can tell you is to use a jack to raise the wing, if the holes are too low, and leave the wing bolts and grille/frontispiece bolts slack to give you some wiggle room. Only way I know of to fix the distortion in the rear wings is to tighten up the bolts; leave all of them slack, and start tightening from the top.

You've done some fantastic work!

Looking good!

Regarding the grill, fit the centre chrome to the front panel and radiator support before you make any alterations. Once you have it together then you can file out the holes a little if requires. If you can get the top hole lined up (using a star head screw driver) the others will nromally be in the right place. Take your time and mask up the area incase the screw driver slips and you spoil the new paint.......

Have you fitted the wing beading at the back? I cant see it in the pictures. This would normally sort out any gap. Any places were the gap is still too big tou can pack out with the old beading suitably trimmed from below. The new stuff is quite a bit thinner than the original type between the edges.

The front panel doesn't look to be central between the wings (different gaps to the indicator/side lamps and bumper brackets) Try loosening the wings at the front and fitting the panel in the best (central) position, elongating any holes in both front panel closing panel and wings as appropriate. The chrome strip and hockey sticks will cover up the front and you can use large washers at the back if necessary.

Thanks everyone for the tips. The reinforcement after roof removal has already been done, so I think I'm ok on that score, but thanks for checking I got it covered, i'll go read the articale sto check its all been done correctly.

The suggestions for the grill are all new ideas I've not tried yet, and will tinker with the wings a little before taking to suggestion I saw surfing the web, which was to weld a strip in on the wings. The wings need pulling in about 1/2 inch, noyt moving up or down as the bonnet alignment is fine. Sounds like I need to plan a day's effort to ge this right, taking a lot of care not to scratch the paintwork.

As for the rear wings, there is no piping fitted. I thought the gap was too large to hide, and gave up with the pipeing. So decided to pack the gap with washers and then filling the gap to make them look like they are part of the body. It does give a suttle different look to the back end, but I'd prefer to remove them later and put it right. I was not confident at the time to over tighten the mounting bolts, but it sounds like they can be difficult to get to fit correctly.

I'll post some more pictures in a few weeks to keep you all up to date. I'm sure I'll be asking many more questions as i proceed to the interior and wiring up. I took thousands of photos before dismantling, but a virus trashed my drive a few years ago and I lost them, but managed to retrieve a few I'd sent on to the car dona. So it's now a bit of a struggle to remember how it all goes back together - still, adds to the cahllange. One thing I'm really glad I did, was to label everything as it was removed, this has helped identify bits that are worn and need replacing and help in putting them back in the right place without the photos. I also spend time surfing photos on thr internet for other photos I can steal or borrow to help put it all back together


thanks again.