Morris Minor Owners Club

Over the last few weeks, I've refilled the front dampers, rebuilt the windscreen wiper mechanicals, cleaned and rebuilt the single SU carb, cleaned the fuel pump filter, replaced some frayed wiring, checked compression (150 150 145 150), cleaned and numbered the plugs, replaced distributor points, oiled dynamo, cleaned air filter canister and repainted with black crinkle paint, and did some general cleaning of the engine bay.  Also cleaned and adjusted brakes, got parking brake working again (more or less), cleaned, repainted, and repaired turn signal switch unit. Unit needs replacement. Differential drain port drips.  I think engine bay next step will be to clean and paint the battery box, and paint that rusty/worn area along the firewall, just under the battery box.

Before:  
As of today:
I can't afford a professional respray (blue) of the engine bay.  What do you think if I just rattle-can sprayed the bay flat black?  I know it's not proper, but it would look better.
Tom M.

If you are going to spray the engine bay with rattle cans (and there's nothing wrong with that) it would be just as easy to get trafalgar blue in a spray can and it will look very tidy. I think it would look much better in the original blue than Matt black.

I agree with Philip’s comment above, that’s your best option if you’re doing it with cans and it’ll look much better than black.

Thanks gentlemen. The car was repainted around 10 years ago, so I'm not sure what the color actually is. The original color was Dark Green, per the heritage certificate, but I think the later color is more a shade of blue. Would Trafalgar Blue be a good choice for the engine bay?

Always difficult to tell from a photograph but the photo of the engine bay certainly looks like trafalgar blue. You can get aerosols mixed to match. Could you take the car or a small part (e.g. glove box lid) and have the paint matched and mixed ?

The engine bay looks like original Dark Green to me. It is quite a blueish green anyway.
A 1957 car wouldn't have been Trafalgar Blue as it wasn't introduced until several years later.

Spray engine bay with spray grease or WD40...patches of new paint will spoil the originality..

Thanks for the suggestions. For some reason I didn't get email notices for recent updates/replies on this thread.

Today I'm using de-greaser on the engine and bay interior. I think I agree that the bay remains Dark Green, and the exterior respray years ago bypassed the engine area.

POMMReg - could you explain a bit more about "spray engine bay with spray grease or WD40"?

Thanks.
Tom M.