Morris Minor Owners Club

hi i am a new member working on restoring my first traveller. I have no previous experience working with cars and have very much enjoyed this first project. While the car is is generally excellent over the years spent in the elements woodrot has set in in several areas. I am hoping that someone with some experience in the replacing the woodwork themselves will be able to give me some assistance in answering a few questions: how much should i be expecting to pay for an entirely new set of external timbers? how difficult is the replacement process? i have the Haynes restoration manual and have ordered the MMOC 'technical tips' book, will these be enough of a guide to carry out a good job when in the hands of a total novice? Any experiences which i could learn from before i jump in and learn the hard (and potentially expensive) way myself? Any and all advice would be extremely welcome as i am a bit nervous about getting this wrong! Thanks!

hi

the entire woodwork is about 2 grand supplied in ready made panels, you can save a little by putting it together yourself.

if you have the haynes restoration manual, it looks pretty straight forward, but i dont think id like to try it myself

are you sure its rotten ? ... it can look worse than it is

cheers
grainger

The best place to buy is from Steve Foreman and the kits are around £1,000 (sorry Grainer) and there are a couple of other suppliers as well, I have not done the job myself but you can bet you will find other problems lurking beneath unless you are very lucky, there are some funny bits like the way the guttering is fixed and its often difficult to release the wood from the B posts as the encapsulated nuts turn and a hole has to be cut from the other side to get at them, but someone on here may be able to explain it better.
http://www.morriswoodwork.co.uk/index.html

Hi WB, I think you and my friend here in South Afrika (I am doing all the footwork for him ) are in the same boat , only he has very rotten wood and quite a few pieces including a back piller to replace. Lucky for you is that you are in Morris country as I discovered on the internet. I cannot believe that there are so many MM's still around and so many thousands of enthusiasts etc.etc. You must rest apeace that someone there (like Kevin - and many many others) are going to help and support you. Go to my topic (bodywork - which incidentally I also should have named as you did ), and find the internet address that I quoted (the Futercity one) where there is a reasonably good
article on how to replace these wooden sections. Unfortunately it lacks the two diagrams that they talk about and on my enquiry to their webmaster , he replied this morning as follows "Those X's mean that the images do not exist at the address given. I have forwarded your mail to the site owner, although the account has not been updated since October 2002 and so the address may no longer be valid."
Good luck with the task ahead and if you perhaps get clear instructions somewhere, please forward it to me also at fritzdw@tshwane.gov.za . We are also desparate and have been told by two guys in town who has done the job that it is NOT easy and one of them has restored 8 Traveller's including the wood which he shaped himself to great success. Unfortunately he is now seriously ill, partly because of the ashwood dust, and permanently on oxygen. The other guy is a coachbuilder himself and also just wished us luck.
If I discover anything else ,I will pass it on to you.
Kind regards
Fritz.

Hi WB, its Fritz again. I noticed that the site that I quoted on my first posting is not quite right. Here is the correct one.
http://members.fortunecity.com/minorman ... _wood.html .
If you still have problems with it send me an e-mail to fritzdw@tshwane.gov.za and then I will cpoy and paste the article and send it for you.
Greetings .

and again - - with the automatic underlining of that website you lose the 3 underscores between the last 4 words, otherwise you will not be able to connect.
Bi

Hello WB1147,
I replaced all the wood on my wife's traveller some years ago. I bought a kit from Foreman's and it was relatively straight forward.
The first thing is to treat\varnish the wood. Then fix the aluminium panesl, and instead of the traditional Dumdum paste I used a modern sealant (It was not Silicone, unfortunately I don't remember what I used, try a good builders merchant).
Loosely assemble the frame and trial fit the roof section. You need to move the frame until all fits in line then tighten up, checking the fit all the time. The kit came with clear inmstruction I seem to remeber. I had to trim the rear doors to get them to fit and also I made spacers to adjust the level of the outside of the door to match the main frame. (I also used dome nuts for the hinges as they are neater than the original plain nuts.)
By the way I used screws to fix the roof and guttering on, rather than nails.

good luck,

Alec

Alec can you remember what it was like to remove as I have heard stories about removing the wood from the "B" posts, and then the corrosion that was hidden by the wood, or did you not have problems in these areas.

Hello Kevin,
I don't remember any real problems in the 'B' post area, but I had to renew large parts of the rear wing flanges.

Alec

Kevin

Luckily the wood on Molly is one of her best features and is sound all around, but I have taken the back section off so that I can replace the sills and repair the rear wheel arches.
I had no problems removing the bolts around the 'B' pillar or around the roof section. My main problems were the bolts in the rear floor and all of the screws which hold the frame onto the wheel arch flanges.
The aluminium panels looked fine until I removed the battens which hide their edges but on taking them off I found severe corrosion on most of them.
I have left the back section as a complete unit because I coudn't figure out how the gutter channel was attached, and I don't really need to take it apart anyway.

Good luck and if I'm sure you'll get as much help as possible from the forum. Everyone has been very forthecoming with answers to any of my questions.

I have cosidered using caravan sealent when I put it back together, as it doesn't go hard and is available on a roll, like double sided tape, so is easy to apply.

Hello Brit,
for future information, the channel is, roughly speaking, a U section before fitting. The roof panel is first attached to the woodwork then the channel put in position and nailed through the roof. The upper lip is then dressed down leaving an 'L' section around the roof. To remove you need to prise up the flange that was dressed down to cover the nails, lever the channel away from the roof, bit by bit, then tap back a bit allowing you to pull out the securing nail. If you are replacing the channel with a new one then simply lever away from the roof.
Hope that makes sense.

Alec

I have cosidered using caravan sealent when I put it back together, as it doesn't go hard

Neither does Dum Dum the original sealer but it can creep if a bit too much is applied over time and is the only thing you should use on the rear glass in the doors.