Morris Minor Owners Club

Recently bought this 1967 Traveller. One of these has been on my bucket list for while now so really pleased to have one at last.

This car has been owned and maintained by an elderly gent who can no longer drive. Over the years he has carried out some maintenance but the car has not been driven on the road for a long while and stored in a dry garage. The wood has been replaced in stages but has never been out so is virtually as new which is a great start on these.

He told me he wanted to get the cylinder head sorted for unleaded but managed to get a new engine and gearbox for not much more so this unleaded engine and gearbox is virtually unused, another real bonus.

The front drum brakes were updated to Wolseley but as the car has not moved in years, none of the brakes currently work. I am minded to return these to standard drums to help maintain originality. From my previous drum brake cars, if well maintained they work fine for the intended purpose.

So, what needs to be done. There has been welding work in the usual places but it will need more work in this area as I found more rust in the floor and sills. The interior trim is tired so will be completely sorted to bring back that lovely interior. I will no doubt find more that needs to be done but is why I bought a project.

This will be my fifth car restore following a Dutton Phaeton, Austin A35, Rover Mini Cooper and Morris 8 - all British

So, I have one initial question. As this is obviously not the original engine and it does not have an ID plate near plug 1 - do I create a new engine ID somehow or do I simply get a new plate made and re use the original engine ID that is on the log book.??

Probably not strictly legal, but when I took my engine out for a rebuilt I replaced it with a temporary engine that had no ID plate riveted to the block. I made my own using a strip of aluminium using the original engine number. This was not to deceive but for appearance only. In a month or two I refitted the original engine and know one was any the wiser. This was in the 1990's when these things did not matter so much. Nice project, by the way.

I agree re using an engine ID from from another engine is probably not the way to go. Any ideas on how I could get a new ID for this engine - it is unlikely I will ever be able to get it's original ID? Tks

Well a question with no answer available will be... 'Why does it have no ID Plate' ...A reconditioned one, or a new one, would/should have had an ID plate.
There are hoops you can go through with DVLA, but if the old engine has gone, long ago and hopefully isn't in service on a car somewhere,....

Rebuilt/Remanufactured engines sometimes are stripped of original ID

The Wolseley 9" front brakes are an excellent improvement and rather rare to find nowadays. I sleeved my cylinders with stainless steel. I noticed a big difference after fitting them to my previous traveller.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions - I don't know why the new or reconditioned engine does not have an ID plate but is not the end of the world and am sure many many old cars will be same. I think will just leave 'as is' and let sleeping dogs lie

Re the Wolseley 9" front brakes - many thanks and noted but if I do decide to revert to standard, I will try to sell them on this forum.

Update - after a bit of further cleaning, I have found a number that looks to have been lightly engraved directly onto the block under where the ID plate would normally sit - so I do have a number 6372 - which does not seem a proper format but I guess may be a rebuild number - anyone seen this before - any thoughts ??

Quite common for engine rebuilders to give the rebuilt engine a stamped engine number.
Usually the engine number stamped is the job number for that particular engine rebuild.