Morris Minor Owners Club

hello

So yesterday I decided to trial fit the original front wings. This is after having replaced large parts of the body shell including the nearside front inner wing panel. All lines up beautifully including all bolt holes from wings to inner wings and front panel, etc., but:

strangely, the bonnet is not covering the (non- repaired) offside inner wing by about half an inch, as if the inner wing is bowing outwards - yet on the nearside (replaced) it is virtually ok.

The bonnet is otherwise properly aligned front and back.

any ideas how to sort out the offside inner wing alignment - brute force or something else?

Thanks

That is odd!!!!
Can you put a picture up please?? What other work was done in the engine bay/ inner wing area??

You may have to bend it back, or perhaps use a ratchet strap around the inner wings to persuade them in a little.

Did you also replace the Cowl (radiator mounting) panel?? This is what should hold the inner wings in the right place. As the bonnet latch locates into the cowl panel, then this panel should locate the inner wings correctly with respect to the bonnet.. Perhaps if you have a repro or repaired cowl panel that the bolt holes that fix it to the inner wings are not in quite the right place??? Or perhaps if the front crossmember was changed or repaired, then the bolt holes that the cowl panel and front panel fix to at the bottom on the lip of the front crossmember are off slightly.

Don't despair! Due to the bolt on nature of the Morris Minor they can take a bit of "jiggling" to get everything to fit properly.

Photos required please?

Thanks chickenjohn, everything appears to line up fine with the front panel - like you say it may need just a little persuasion. Here's a picture - as you can see the bonnet doesn't line up with the inner wing (in primer). Don't worry about gap towards the front panel, I just haven't bolted the wing at that point yet but it does line up perfectly there with front panel.[frame][/frame]

Thanks for the photo Stagg,

did you by any chance have to repair the bump stop area?? This is a common inner wing repair on the minor and repairs here can make the inner wing bow out a little. Is the inner wing stiffener panel attached??

That's a good thought, yes I had to repair that area. I'll check It out

That gap looks about normal to me, once its all in the same colour of paint it wont be so noticeable. I can usually always get one side to sit nicely but never the other....

stag36587 wrote:That's a good thought, yes I had to repair that area. I'll check It out

If you drill out the welds on the stiffener and then attach it a little further down the inner wing bowl, you may be able to tuck the inner wing in by a fraction of an inch and straighten the line a little to match the bonnet edge.

And anyway, as David says, many Minors have oddities like this, just seam seal any gap between wing and inner wing and provided the edge of the bonnet runs parallel to the edge of the front wing, it will look fine once painted!

Sometimes, when restoring a car, we can get a bit obsessed by these details and forget the bigger picture.

Well I had a great chance to examine some Moggies in detail at the Heritage Centre, Gaydon, yesterday. Compared to cars there,my offside gap is actually not all that far off - though I think I will adjust the inner wing stiffener slightly. If anything I now need to adjust the nearside inner wing so that there is a decent gap between bonnet and wing because there is almost no gap at all the moment. I won't worry too much as the end result is vaguely symmetrical when viewed from the front!