Morris Minor Owners Club

The front end is nearly there, much patching and replacing of rotten metal.
The inner wheel arches were very frayed around the edges,but rather than totally replacing them,I cut out and patched .
The inner wings,tie plates and cross member are new, but I managed to make new tie plate extensions,brackets holding the bumper irons to the tie plate, and roof gutters. Luckily I have a friend who has a big sheet metal folder.
Next step is to look at the doors,bottoms are gone,so a bit of work needed . It is slow, but getting there. Fills many a weary lockdown day.

Much inspiration and good advice from others on this forum. Thanks .

Another couple of pics.
The wooden frame I made before removing the A post and am using it as a jig for fitting the new A post,as it should hopefully get it in exactly the same location as before. It means that I can get access to weld the new one without the door being in the way. Let's hope it wprks.
Any comments + or - appreciated.!

You look to be making good progress there.
You workshop is also very enviable for the amount of space you have along with the car lift etc.

I see you have a Myford Super 7 with the desirable "Industrial Stand" as well...........mine is just the same from when my late father bought it new in the 80's.
Those stands are very hard to come by now, Myford stopped making them after a while as they were too expensive to produce with the rolled top edge to the radiused tray.

Phil P

Hi Phil, good to hear from you.
Believe it or not,I was given ,yes Given the lathe about 20 years ago,It was in a bit of a state but with the help and knowledge of a retired machinist pal, I cleaned it up ,had the bed reground along with a few other bits&pieces and learned how to use it.
It i had been ,very useful .
The 2 post lift was a 70th present from Madame P. She was fed up with mucky and greasy overalls needing washed because of scrambling about on the floor. It is a real game changer,and is in regular use by myself and various mates.
It makes it very easy to lift the body on and off the rotisserie. Easy on the old back.

parahandy 15 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 25, 2020 1:38 pm The front end is nearly there, much patching and replacing of rotten metal.
The inner wheel arches were very frayed around the edges,but rather than totally replacing them,I cut out and patched .
The inner wings,tie plates and cross member are new, but I managed to make new tie plate extensions,brackets holding the bumper irons to the tie plate, and roof gutters. Luckily I have a friend who has a big sheet metal folder.
Next step is to look at the doors,bottoms are gone,so a bit of work needed . It is slow, but getting there. Fills many a weary lockdown day.

Its awesome to see your spit jig, that locking mechanism I'm going to try to replicate for my project.. assuming i have the right sized tube in stock to slide over the scaffold bar. I assume the big stillsons turn the car ok?

Yes, they do indeed turn the car, however as I continue the panel replacement, the car get's that bit heavier and it needs a bit more
wellie to turn it over.
To begin with I only had holes in the tube at 90% apart but as the work went on, it was really good to have the angle of the car set to suit the work I was doing, so I drilled location holes in the tube all the way round ,this means I can "fine tune" the angle the body is held at.
I am working on the O/S door at the moment.... a real pig of a job.

Thanks for the comments, keeps the morale up !!

parahandy 15 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 8:09 pm Yes, they do indeed turn the car, however as I continue the panel replacement, the car get's that bit heavier and it needs a bit more
wellie to turn it over.
To begin with I only had holes in the tube at 90% apart but as the work went on, it was really good to have the angle of the car set to suit the work I was doing, so I drilled location holes in the tube all the way round ,this means I can "fine tune" the angle the body is held at.
I am working on the O/S door at the moment.... a real pig of a job.

Thanks for the comments, keeps the morale up !!

Thanks for the info and tips, I'm sorry one more question.. how high are your wooden trestles, if you don't mind me asking? I am starting to sketch out the plan of my jig build.

I have to say the work your doing looks awesome, if I can come close to replicating what you have done on my saloon Ill be happy.

Hello.. the trestles are exactly a metre high, this means that if I turn the whole thing over,the roof clears the floor by about 100 mm.
Luckily I have the 2 post lift ,otherwise it might be very difficult to lift the body up to the required height,but it should be possible using jacks or a block & tackle from the garage roof.
The work so far looks fairly good, but that's really after a coat of primer...it covers a multitude of sins!
I am really learning as I go along, with much inspiration from some of the excellent guys on here.

I used a broadly similar arrangement of trestles. One thing I found useful was fitting heavy duty castors to the trestle feet, which allowed me to adjust the position in the garage fairly easily. Not having the luxury of a two post lift (me, jealous?) I did lift the shell onto the trestles with a jack and block and tackle, which I also used to hold it in position. I like the locking mechanism, and very impressed by the work so far.