Morris Minor Owners Club

hi i am helping a fellow club member with a rebuild of a 67 2 door saloon , he purchased new rear light bases and basically they don't fit !! the casting is 5 - 10mm to wide ,hangs over the gasket , the lenses has a 3mm gap at the top and the curve is not even close to the wing , before i mention where they came from has anyone else tried fitting new base's and found a supplier which fit , i gave up and put the old ones back 100% perfect fit , also the chrome is very poor looking , they are going straight back but i bet they have '' never had a problem before ''

Presumably that is the larger sized later rear light pattern. The universal problem is that the original base moulding was cast in 'Masak' metal , a particular alloy recipe , as you may already be aware.
My originals were also very badly pitted so any autojumble I attend has always meant a search for better condition old stock . I was finally successful in picking up a very much better pair with far less noticable pitting (but at a premium cost). Good condition used ones seem to be as rare as Hens Teeth.
Don't know why a decent acceptable quality reproduction replacement cannot be made in some alternative material that could have an effectively applied chrome effect. New metal cast replacements now appear to be well over the £100 mark, seeming to compare somewhat out of line in comparison with the earlier and lesser expensive smaller pattern units .

Most of the repro stuff is rubbish and is of poor quality

A pair of original rear lights has just sold on fleabay for £244.91. Wow!!

blimey !! £ 244.91

I cant believe why anyone would dream of paying that price

And the seller admitted to "a couple of marks here and there".
I think the price just goes to show how high the demand actually is for these items. Somebody thought them worth that much.

irmscher wrote:I cant believe why anyone would dream of paying that price

I guess if you're rich and you want them, you buy them. Tough for us mere mortals as it forces the going rate up, but life is not fair.

LobbyLudd wrote:Presumably that is the larger sized later rear light pattern. The universal problem is that the original base moulding was cast in 'Masak' metal , a particular alloy recipe , as you may already be aware.
My originals were also very badly pitted so any autojumble I attend has always meant a search for better condition old stock . I was finally successful in picking up a very much better pair with far less noticable pitting (but at a premium cost). Good condition used ones seem to be as rare as Hens Teeth.
Don't know why a decent acceptable quality reproduction replacement cannot be made in some alternative material that could have an effectively applied chrome effect. New metal cast replacements now appear to be well over the £100 mark, seeming to compare somewhat out of line in comparison with the earlier and lesser expensive smaller pattern units .

I don't know if this helps but I had a similar problem with new rubbers so I cut most of the unseen rubber away so that what remained was more willing to be stretched out to the correct shape. Ie instead of a big patch of rubber with 2 small holes, I had a half inch ring of rubber. It's a bit of a fiddle keeping the rubber in place while tightening down the light fittings but it's do-able without assistance or strength.

Who was the seller of these ??

they came from bull motif

That's not good

What about the plastic chrome ones they used to make?

update after speaking to the supplier 'never had a problem before ' they make base gaskets to fit the bases so against my wishes the owner bought a pair and they nearly almost fitted the lenses fit is still useless but i give up not my problem !!!!