Morris Minor Owners Club

The car in question is a 1954 4 door deluxe in Clariandon Grey, and with red leather interior.
It was bought by my mother in the late 60's as a runaround to do her first district nursing job. She went to Frank Painter's in Shrewsbury and asked what she could buy for £45. They said nothing in in the showroom, but they had a car round the back. It had been used as a parts runabout car and was tatty, covered with snow and looking very forlorn. She was asked to call back a few days later, and there it was on the forecourt with a full tank of fuel and having been washed and polished.
The car has stayed in the family ever since, being used as the only family car for most of that time. I was very nearly born on the backseat in the 1980's!
Skip to 2010 and after various rebuilds and lots of use she is looking tired again. My father decided to stop using it as his every day car and bought a modern runaround, so it was over to me to take over as curator.

As funds were a bit tight for the re commissioning, I decided to sell my everyday car a Jag XJ-S and put all the money into 'The Bomb'. Still not a big enough budget for a full resto, it did however allow for a tidy up.

First job was to strip down the very shabby engine bay.





I bought this to do the job:


Strip the interior to get at the gearbox:








I bought these wheels from a friend and just wanted to check that they fitted over the Marina disk brakes before I bought tyres. They did.

The engine bay was solid, just shabby, so I set to cleaning it up and gave it a coat of red oxide.


Then brush painted it in body colour with the appropriate black bits.



I then started dressing the engine bay, cleaning bits up as I went. Looking better already!



The engine needed a good wash down and re-paint.




And swing it back in.....

I forgot to mention I fitted a brand new clutch whist it was all apart. The spigot bearing in the crank should be a needle roller bearing on the Ital engine, and this had a home made brass bush which was largely a pile of dust, so that was also replaced.
The interior was shabby, but savable, so I took the carpets out and deep cleaned/washed them which seemed to bring them up well.




The back seat had plenty of leather feed and came up reasonably.


The passenger seat was very poor, so I managed to find this (for free) to replace it. It had been in a scrap car in a field for years and was damp. I flooded it with leather feed and cleaned it up, so it is reasonable, but I do want to replace it, so if anyone has a better one please let me know!


Lastly in the interior I fitted some extra instruments:

The new rubber arrived.....


So with the engine back in it was time to finish off and detail the engine bay.




And so with a fresh MOT and some spotlights from a modern Mini......

some great works and pics here, the extra dials that you've put in what is the one on the far left for? vacuum gauge?

keep up the good work and enjoy

Kind regards

Scott

Nice job, every Minor should have a district nurse in it's history!

Looks really good now

smart looking moggy you have there......
well done

Looks good.

George

What a nice looking car - very subtle modifications with a retro feel but without being too custom. what are the wheels - they look great?

The wheels are Cosmic Mk6, an interesting twist on the slotmag theme. Must be pretty rare these days.
By the way, does the type-9 gear lever clear the Series 2 handbrake?

Great looking car there, really like the rims and extra lights they look fantastic on it!

Thanks for the kind words chaps, yes they are cosmic wheels, pretty rare. I would like to sell them and put it back on standard bodyccolour wheels eventually though. The gear lever misses the series 2 handbrake, just, because it comes out in the same place as a 1098 with only a slightly modified gearbox cover. The gearbox is the standard Ital item not a type.

In June my girlfriend and myself are heading to France for a 2500 mile jaunt to her brothers wedding.
I've already asked what I should expect to have in the boot:
http://www.mmoc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=50021

Before setting out there are a number of issues that need addressing, to give us the best chance of getting around without event.
This bank holiday is my big chance to get the work done.

I started by buying bits...


Then headed over to the car to start work.
Time to take her out of hibernation...



It was all looking a bit grotty at the back end




Then out with the angle grinder.


Off with the wing


To find out how bad this was:


The worst repair section I have ever seen.








Please excuse the rubbish welding, I'm not very good at it, and welding to rust is HARD!








So that is how I left it last night. About to go back out now and push some black paint around before building up the back end again.

The welding looks fine to me, better than what I used to manage anyway.
If there is a new rotor arm in that pile of spares be sure to take the old one with you, standard new ones have a very poor reputation.

Right then, time to update the thread.....
I painted the back end up in black



And whilst the brush was out.....



Poly bushes fitted...
ador_photo/media/The%20Bomb/Pre%20France%20Checkover/2013-05-05140500_zpsc45359f2.jpg.html]


Then built the back end back up.





Then I pressure tested my spare tall tank to make sure it was ok.


The pile of scrap is growing!



My friend has leant us a nice period roof rack for the journey, and my father found a few old cases to go on top.




One of the seats was getting pretty rough. It was mainly the stitching that has broken, so I decided to have a go at stitching it back together.



Whilst the cover was off I spotted that the weld had broken on the frame.


So it was out with the mig again.



A nice evening spent watching a film and stiching the cover!


And back together.

Spot lights! Just joking. A little tease as to what my other project is though perhaps....


I had noticed an oil leak that I didn't like the look of. It was dripping from between the bell housing and back plate at quite an alarming rate, but only after a long run when everything was hot. I did'nt like the look of the location of the leak. I suspected that the oil pump cover was leaking and the oil running down the backplate.

Only one way to find out though....


Spotted this on the way out... The engine has been vibrating a lot, and this must be a result. More on that later....




Clutch looks lovely.


But no leak....odd.....





So where was the oil coming from then?


That trail of oil looks suspicious....


Surley they wouldn't be daft enough to drill that lower bolt hole straight though into the sup of the gear box? Would they?!......



Ok yes they would!


Yummy gearbox insides!


Pitty about the damage to the reverse gear idler. Still at least it's not that important. Obviously an exuberant crash into reverse at some point.


I think there should be a gasket for the front of the gearbox onto the bell housing, but it was well glued in place with sealant, and since I couldn't easily break the seal i decided to leave it. To cure the oil leak I fitted a copper washer to the culprit bolt.



As I said earlier, there has been an engine vibration for a while now. I have changed the crank pulley, changed the waterpump, and changed the altenator. None of those things seemed to work. I have decided that the cause must be the engine mounts. These are new, and are absolutly rock hard. I don't like them at all. Surley they need to have some give in them to absorb and engine vibraion and prevent it being transfered through to the body. I bought some new ones from Bull Motif, as they were listed as being the correct grade rubber.


Lets have a clean up....



And drop her back in.




All hooked up...


And back together (well nearly)




So a bit more to do this weekend, and then it's off to France!

Nice work finding and sorting the oil leak and fixing the seats.
Although the roof rack is a nice period accessory unless you really need it I wouldn't use it on your trip.
It will hurt the fuel consumption and higher speeds too.
Given the recent threads about braided petrol pipes that should go too

MarkyB wrote: Given the recent threads about braided petrol pipes that should go too

Really?! can you link me to the threads in question? I have never had any issues. This one has been on the car about two years now and still looks like new.

I know what you mean about the roof rack, but we need the extra space, and it also looks so good!