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Boris the '59 Minor.


Joey spud

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I'm kicking around the idea in my head of doing something similar but in a "square to round" fabrication like a mini hopper and then fitting a flexible pipe that will sit under the carb in order to drain any unwanted fuel leaks down to earth instead of all over the exhaust manifold. Bikes like my previous Honda 550/4 did give an overflow past the hot exhaust for safety so I don't know why Austin Morris didn't.

It's not just you by the way, once I've stuck a photo in a post, I can't write anything under it. But then I've got big navvy hands and I'm shit with phones 👍

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  • 3 weeks later...
8 minutes ago, Joey spud said:

I acquired this suitably scruffy vacuum gauge to go in the Morris today.

I didn't need it but for a tenner it seemed rude not to.

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Ahh.... My first Moggy van had one of those 'Econ-no-Meters'.

I used to* drive like a loon to make the needle bounce off both stops..... 

*bummhatzz.... Need another excuse these days 🥺

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I am thinking of adding power steering to the Morris as I have totally wrecked shoulder that is really making my life a misery these days.

I have been looking around the web and a Corsa B or C  'leccy' column seems to be the way to go,I think I'll only need assistance when carrying out parking duties.

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3 minutes ago, Joey spud said:

I am thinking of adding power steering to the Morris as I have totally wrecked shoulder that is really making my life a misery these days.

I have been looking around the web and a Corsa B or C  'leccy' column seems to be the way to go,I think I'll only need assistance when carrying out parking duties.

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would adding a steering ball to the existing steering wheel setup work for you, so you can do parking with your good shoulder/arm? :) 

(I think it would be much simpler then adding in a different steering column)

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14 hours ago, Asimo said:

PAS on a Minor? Nooo!

Best thing about driving a Minor is the lovely, direct steering, which could never be called heavy, even for parking.

The trouble is my shoulder(s) are painfully knackered and my short arse wife would want to use it too so a Corsa system with a simple adjustability potentiometer would work well I think although I suspect that even though the trunnions and uprights were replaced not long before I got him the whole steering and suspension system is dry and needs going through and freeing off and correctly lubing up.

And of course the 185/70 tyres and 5.5j offset rims obviously ain't going to help much either.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am feeling really shit with a dose of the covids at the moment but thought fuck it I ain't letting it win so I loaded up on paracetamol and ibuprofen and went up to see Boris.

I want to run the engine up to temp but need an exhaust system.

Luckily I had a 1.75" diameter exhaust kit turn up the other day to replace the skinny little 948cc peashooter one that must have been really strangling the bigger engine.

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I only needed around half of the bits in the kit to replicate the original layout.

I think it might end up being quite loud as both silencer boxes are straight through cherry bombs (oh dear,never mind).

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I also aquired a small flexi joint to give myself a little bit of "wiggle room'' when I connect it to the manifold which I have welded onto the front silencer box but then didn't fancy crawling around under the car so shelved this idea for now.

While Boris has been laid up the clutch and brake pedals have started to seize up on their pivot shaft so I thought it wouldn't hurt to remove the gearbox tunnel and have a closer look.

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The tunnel is an aftermarket fibreglass item to clear the Sierra gearbox and I guess the gear lever may exit slightly further back too.

Once removed a nice freshly reconditioned type9 was revealed.

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The clutch linkage is a bit of a lash up with a fair bit of slack in it many joints.

The pedal is quite heavy too but I am sure altering a pivot point or lengthening a lever arm or two would improve things 

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 Again I didn't fancy crawling around under the car so just sprayed everything with wd40 and left it for another day and went in search of something I could do standing upright.

How about changing the leaking window seal on the side glass as a complete set of seals came with the car ?

I didn't have any cord to pull the rubber over the lip but got away with using green garden wire but had a head scratching moment as the window is fitted from inside the car and not the other way round like every other car I've fitted glass to.

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I dug out my non setting windscreen sealant that last saw active duty when i fitted a new screen to my Brat around eight years ago but even after sticking the tube in a tub of boiling water for ten mins it was still too solid to squirt behind the new rubber.

So that'll be game over for today then.

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  • 2 weeks later...

They say that this covid malarkey can give you a bit of brain fog.

Well I was welding away under the car when the the torch started coughing and farting about so unsure if it was me or a poor earth I slid out from the underside and tried striking a weld up on the handle of the earth clamp.

This produced a good pool of weld so it was a crap connection and then without thinking I grabbed the clamp and gave it a  good wiggle...

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The new exhaust has been cut to length and loosely mounted under the car and once I make up some hangers i think it'll do the job nicely.

I was looking for decent original cast iron manifold clamps but ended up using a pair of 50mm clamps from a Berlingo rear box instead and applied a good dose of assembly paste in the joint so hopefully the fecker won't blow.  

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The quarter repair panel has been trimmed and fiddled with so that it lines up fairly well with the door and the loosely fitted rear wing.

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The centre cross member where the torsion bars mount is scrap but the centre of the cross member is fine so it only needs the outter repair panels adding.

After measuring twice and cutting multiple times i have tacked the o/s one on.

There is a jacking point (long tubey thing ) that goes on the end of the cross member that just seems to collect mud and rot out for fun so I am going to forget about it for now.

The o/s of Boris is finally coming together now he still needs some seams fully welding up and it's looks a bit patchwork quilty but it's solid and rot free now.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Randomness post 

My plan is to have this car safe and rust free with updated mechanical bits but keeping its appearance sort of scruffy and lived in.

But my rear plate was just a bit too tired so I gave it a quick make over.

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I have rubbed back the paint so that the primer coat is blotching through in places so the plate still looks its age but is tidier than before and while the sun was out I clayed and cut back the paint on the boot and it has come up really well.

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I have had a look at the boot floor and rotted rear quarters too I have a panel that will take care of the worst of it.

The tank came out easily enough and and I used a wire wheel and a scraper to clean it up before rust treating and double coating with black zinc rich paint.

I have also bunged a rad on him and run the engine up from a fuel can for a good 30 mins just to get the oil around everywhere and see how the different carb and exhaust perform.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok more cutting discs and panels have been aquired so best do a bit more while the weather's good.

To replace the rotten boot floor I thought I could just cut out the old one and pop in the new one without disturbing anything but in reality the lower boot panel is very weak and both rear spring hanger panels need replacing too.

Being a bit tight for access I will have to  replace the n/s spring hanger when I have completed the o/s and spun the car around.

The o/s hanger has been replaced before and looked ok until it was probbed with blunt implement.

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Sic's recent BMC/BL tin bashing has shamed me in to getting my arse in gear so lets move on.

I needed a new lower boot surround panel as mine was too weak to survive me trying to drill out the welds between it and the floor and what I assumed was good metal was mostly thick filler anyway.

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I ordered a replacement panel from Andy Eggleton (Morris Minor botherer down near Bristol) and I found it on my door step two days later,what I didn't realize though was the panel was hand made in Sri Lanka by the now defunct Durable Car Company.

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After much cutting,grinding and cutting again the foreign panel is now fitted and not too bad all things considered, it's a bit thin gauge but for £45 it has saved a lot of dicking about.

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The new boot lock plinth was aligned and welded in by sliding my upper body through the fuel tank hole with a mig torch in my hand.

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Lately i have upped the drill size for my plug welding antics to 8mm and now I get a seriously strong fixing (probably a bit over the top tbh) and when I went to swap over my empty gas cylinder recently they had run out of 5% so I was given 15% instead (same price) maybe it's coincidence but my arc now seems much more stable when working outside.

There's still work required on the rear wing to boot floor area and some seams still need fully welding but it is deffinate progress.

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18 minutes ago, Joey spud said:

Lately i have upped the drill size for my plug welding antics to 8mm and now I get a seriously strong fixing (probably a bit over the top tbh)

I've been using the punch on my joggler - I think its 5mm. I might go up to a bigger hole and see if I get a better weld. It's okay on 5mm but I often got too much that ends up on top rather than through the hole. 

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20 minutes ago, Joey spud said:

There's still work required on the rear wing to boot floor area and some seams still need fully welding but it is deffinate progress.

I work on the basis that any progress, no matter small, is good progress! Even mistakes is progress as you have to potentially make that mistake to get to the next stage. 

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I don't know the full story between these and DCC and any connections but I believe those panels come from here now:

http://morrisminor.lk/

Andy Eggleton makes some panels himself, some are bought in like the above. The Sri Lankan arch section fit was appalling. Took a lot of cutting, bending and adjustment to fit into the right place. 

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3 hours ago, Joey spud said:

Lately i have upped the drill size for my plug welding antics to 8mm and now I get a seriously strong fixing (probably a bit over the top tbh) and when I went to swap over my empty gas cylinder recently they had run out of 5% so I was given 15% instead (same price) maybe it's coincidence but my arc now seems much more stable when working outside.

There's still work required on the rear wing to boot floor area and some seams still need fully welding but it is deffinate progress.

 

2 hours ago, SiC said:

I've been using the punch on my joggler - I think its 5mm. I might go up to a bigger hole and see if I get a better weld. It's okay on 5mm but I often got too much that ends up on top rather than through the hole. 

Nice  work  Joey - I've resigned myself to some pressed panels for the P6 as I am a bit fucked off making absolutely everything........  nice rear end - as they say.

I also tried the joddler at first - but ended up drilling out to 8mm - same issues as SiC. Gave up trying to get wirespeed factored in or whatever it was I was screwing up. 1 time in life I appreciate a bigger hole......

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@Joey spud is that exhaust a maniflow system? Im looking at one for mine as exhaust makers round here have all gone the way of the dodo. Bit put off cos theure supposed made to fit their manifold. The system is about 250 but the manifold is 350. Dont want a 600 quid system so i reckon ill just make my own. Unless yours was any crack and they make one for an A40? Ive already got a 1.75 on it but its really poorly done, and ive already got a high flow manifold which muddies the water a bit. Cars looking brilliant by the way, exactly the mechanical upgrades i want, touch of the green eyed monsters if im being honest 😄

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On 29/05/2022 at 18:07, Matty said:

@Joey spud is that exhaust a maniflow system? Im looking at one for mine as exhaust makers round here have all gone the way of the dodo. Bit put off cos theure supposed made to fit their manifold. The system is about 250 but the manifold is 350. Dont want a 600 quid system so i reckon ill just make my own. Unless yours was any crack and they make one for an A40? Ive already got a 1.75 on it but its really poorly done, and ive already got a high flow manifold which muddies the water a bit. Cars looking brilliant by the way, exactly the mechanical upgrades i want, touch of the green eyed monsters if im being honest 😄

My system is a chopped about Marina/Ital manifold and matching twin down pipe cobbled on to this cheapy ebay kit.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121500532030?epid=3031297039&hash=item1c49fefd3e:g:GrYAAOSwuMFUdgDH

The quality is ok but it's a bit loud having no proper baffled silencer in the set up and may well quickly become tiresome to me and my neighbours so i may have to change the front cherry bomb for something like this.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121581315493?hash=item1c4ecfa5a5:g:4wUAAOSwZjJU70Q~

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I engineered some up the shed time and set to with completing the o/s rear quarter of Boris,it's annoying that little patches and repairs take far longer than anticipated a days gone and there's little to show for it.

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I have boxed in the missing spring hanger to boot floor corner and a couple of scabby bits of the wing mounting flange (that has been replaced before in the cars life) also needed cutting out and renewing.

I was trying to tack up a patch half way around the arch when it sort of melted,I think there must be a leaded joint there so I'll revisit that when the filler/paint come out.

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I loosely fitted the wing and it didn't fit within a mile so ignored it and continued replacing the rotten chassis box section and missing floor under the back seat so that I could patch in some more of the inner wing.

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I can't weld this final repair panel in until I fit the rear wing (without it overhanging the rear valance) so I ended up having  to trim back the mounting flange on the back edge of the wing so it could be pushed down and forward more and I think I am about there now.

This wing was an unknown pattern part that i picked up last year so i think a bit of trimming and cussing is allowed.

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 So it don't look like much but it's moving forward.

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1 minute ago, Joey spud said:

I was trying to tack up a patch half way around the arch when it sort of melted,I think there must be a leaded joint there so I'll revisit that when the filler/paint come out

There is. It made my weld arc go a pretty colour and the welds go to shit!

3 minutes ago, Joey spud said:

it's annoying that little patches and repairs take far longer than anticipated a days gone and there's little to show for it.

Definitely. I've been loving doing the Midget as the ease of getting hold of quality panels that fit makes it super easy to cut out the old and weld in whole new panels. 

That wing was a crap fit on mine. Being metal, you can bend it into roughly the right shape as you are bolting it up. It's why I repaired my metal wing than put a replacement fibreglass job I had on. The beading takes up and hides a lot of any inaccuracies too. 

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Yes fortunately the wing beading hides a multitude of sins.

When I replaced the o/s section of the centre cross member I had to remove the torsion bar so it makes sense while the front suspension is in bits to replace it's baggy,perished rubber bushes.

I have gone for a set of these funky coloured polyurethane jobbies.

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Not sure if it a wise move or if the front end will have no give in it now and it'll crash and bang over every bump in the road.

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I have had to get a new bottom arm too as the original one had got a bit thin and started to split where the lower trunnion pivoted.

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