News and progress
October 12, 2010
The last couple of days have been quite busy ones for the project, with quite a lot coming together – or coming apart as the case may be!
First the big news – the van back is off! With a reasonable weather forecast (which turned out to be a bit on the erroneous side!) I made a start on removing the last few bolts holding it to the chassis and cab. The ones that fastened into captive nts in the sill had to be cut off with the grinder, being well and truly rusted solid, with the ones on the chassis crossmembers suffering a similar fate. Those higher up on the B-pillar came undone with little effort and all that remained was the puzzle of how to lift it. The initial lift was accomplished with the aid of my trusty engine crane (where would I be without it?) and a ratchet strap looped along the centreline of the cab roof. Lifting in this manner distorted the guttering, but as it’s all got to come off anyway in this case this isn’t a concern. Manoeuvring it into a position where it was out of the way and clear of the crane was more of an issue, but was overcome by the impromptu but perfectly-timed appearance of Martin ‘Yeti’ Yates, 6 feet 9 inches of packed muscle! Ten minutes later, with minimal intervention from myself, the van back was exactly where I wanted it and the crane was out of the way. Cheers mate!
Earlier in the week I succeeded in removing the back axle from the car; the next task is to strip and clean it ready for painting. I’m looking for a differential from a late saloon to replace the lower-geared van one, as this will make the UK tour somewhat more comfortable, more economical and less noisy!
The cylinder head returned from Blackburn’s, where it had been for reconditioning, on Friday. Gasket sets have now been obtained and the engine is more or less ready to go back together – except for one stumbling block. The piston rings on a low compression engine are apparently different to those on the standard compression one, and standard sized low compression rings seem to be difficult to get! Until they are sourced, the engine will stay in bits…
Saturday morning saw the new trunnions fitted to the kingpins and the front brake backplates fitted. I then popped them down to Grundy’s, where Mark fitted the front hubs back on, having already fitted the new bearings. At this point I really must add a special thank you to Mark, who has done an awful lot to help the project along.
With the van back out of the way, the next task will be to get the rest of the cab rear crossmember out of the way and replace the driver’s side cab floor and sill, with localised repairs to the floor and sill on the passenger side. Once this is complete the inner wings and A-pillars will be repaired and the chassis cut away to allow the cab to be rolled on its side for welding and strengthening underneath.
October 5, 2010
I’m afraid there has been another lapse in the updates on here for a couple of weeks- but the good news is that there hasn’t been a lapse in work on the project itself. The trouble is, as always, finding time to go to work in the day, come home and work on the van and keep on top of the website!
Anyway, we’ve enjoyed typical Lancashire weather for the last couple of weeks – that is, prolonged periods of horrendously heavy rain followed by very brief spells of sunshine – which has meant that very little progress has been made on the welding to the cab. I have now purchased a cab rear crossmember and begun cutting out the old one, and cut the driver’s side floor back to sound metal (which has basically meant removing the entire driver’s side floor!) between downpours.
Autumn arrived with a vengeance towards the end of September, heralding shorter evenings which mean weekday work is more or less restricted to overhauling anything I can drag into the house without upsetting my wife too much! So far, I’ve managed to strip, clean, degrease and paint the front suspension. During dismantling it was discovered that the brake drums all round were wrecked – the front ones having become scored and the back ones literally disintegrating – and that the trunnions, previously thought to be in good condition, were worn out and had been packed to prevent them rocking!
It was at this point that the project received a fantastic boost from Charles Ware’s Morris Minor Centre in Bristol. You can find their details on the ‘Our Valued Helpers’ page, but I really must mention the quality of the service received. I must confess that, despite having owned a Minor for a number of years and worked on other people’s for even longer, I’d never purchased anything from them before. When I sent my usual ‘scrounging’ e-mail to them I expected it to be ignored as it had by so many other companies. To my surprise I received a reply less than 24 hours later, pledging support and promising all the parts I had asked for and more besides! On hearing that the van’s front brake drums were useless they included a set of these too! In well under a week from my original e-mail I had a box of parts sitting on my workbench, including new wheel cylinders, a good dynamo and control box, hoses, some brake pipes and a pair of drums! Thanks so much guys – your support means a lot and I’ll be back in the future (with my wallet out this time!).
Yet more valued help has been received from the Morris Minor Centre in Birmingham, who have donated a full set of engine and heater hoses, including clips! Again, their service was superb and they are assured of repeat business in the future. Their details are also deservedly included on the ‘Our Valued Helpers’ page.
The rear suspension has now finally succumbed to the relentless ‘persuasion’ (brute force and ignorance!) I’ve been levelling at it and has finally been freed from the old chassis. The leaf springs should be re-useable after cleaning up, painting and greasing but the shock absorbers have disintegrated. I have a ‘previously-enjoyed’ pair that may well be good enough for re-use – fingers crossed! One handbrake cable has been cut through at some point in the past and has come free okay, but the other is still intact and is well and truly stuck in the wheel cylinder lever. I would like to save the cost of its replacement and so have been resorting to the use of penetrating oil, mole grips and gentle persuasion, but to no avail as yet so the back axle is still technically attached to the chassis!
With this being about the wettest Autumn for a while, I’m anxious that the good pace the project has made to date keeps going – does anyone have a sturdy gazebo with sides or a small marquee they would be willing to lend until the project is completed in the early Spring?
Next parts to source will be rear wheel cylinders and brake shoes and a clutch plate and release bearing – and four good 145 R14 tyres so I can roll the chassis about rather than keep having to lift it! Unfortunately the old crossplies won’t hold air any more…
September 23, 2010
There’s been a longer than usual delay between my updates this time, and for that I apologise – however the good news is that it’s because I’ve been busy working on the van! Progress has been good, and at present the project is on target despite the bad weather.
The chassis was collected from Centurion Blast Cleaning on the morning of Saturday 18 September – and what a transformation! It’s gone from a shabby, rusty-looking thing to a smooth and shiny like-new part in less than a week! The powder coat has a hood even thickness and should certainly make the chassis last a good length of time.
Inevitably, the shot blasting opened up a handful of small holes where the chassis metal had rusted to the point of being pretty thin, but these were ground out and welded up without difficulty, the resultant areas of bare metal being covered with a couple of coats of Hammerite. All that remains to be done is to coat the inside of the chassis with Schutz or Waxoyl to prevent further internal rusting.
A great deal of time has been spent sourcing parts too. The local branch of the Morris Minor Owners Club came to the rescue with a decent used pair of torsion bars (front springs), a front grille and panel and a good bonnet - several worries over in one go! My thanks to Andrew Rudman for making a special trip to the Club lockup to sort this out for me.
The front suspension has now been stripped from the van and is being stripped for refurbishment. The wheel cylinders have all seized, so getting the brake drums off was a bit of a challenge! Some colourful language and a fair amount of work with a hammer and drift later and the drums came free. The next job is to clean and paint the brake backplates and kingpins and replace the wheel bearings; this will hopefully be accomplished this coming weekend. I've already obtained a set of rubber bushes from Leadbetters so as soon as this stage is fitted I will be able to make a start on fitting the suspension to the refurbished chassis.
Work has continued on the engine in the meantime; the head has been ported and polished and sent to Blackburns for reconditioning. One interesting point is that Blackburns have commented that there is no need to fit hardened valve seats for use with unleaded fuel; apparently the perceived issues with valve seat wear have never materialised, and with modified cylinder heads there is always the risk of the hardened valve inserts working loose.
September 13, 2010
So, it was off to Grundy’s again with the rusty old chassis, where I put in some considerable overtime over the weekend of 11 – 12 September. Cleaning back the rust revealed a number of areas where more holes were lurking, and there was nothing for it but to chop all this out back to good metal and weld in some new 16swg steel pieces. My welding may not be the neatest but it’s at least strong, and after two full days of cutting and grinding the chassis was back in one piece. It was only when I was lifting it back into the car that I realised just how heavy it was without all the holes in!
With the chassis in one piece again, it was time to remove the last few ancillaries that were still attached, namely the brake master cylinder and associated pipework, pedal box and an earth strap. Surprisingly, the master cylinder bolts came out easily, but the pipe union that protruded through the chassis leg just wouldn’t budge. After rounding the flats off by trying to undo it using a spanner, I gave up and chopped through it with a hacksaw blade.
The pedal box was something else! The spacing bush that separated the clutch and brake pedals was well and truly seized onto the shaft; penetrating oil had no effect and even Mark’s oxy-acetylene kit wouldn’t move it. In the end, we settled for getting the two pedals to move independently of each other and left the assembly in the chassis. T least I’ll have some nicely refurbished pedals when the chassis comes back!
Everything was accomplished as darkness fell on the Sunday night, and bright and early the following morning the chassis was loaded into the car and taken down to CBC, who were ready and waiting for it. All being well, it will be ready for collecting within the next week or so.
September 10, 2010
Well, what a week! Great strides have been made in the restoration since the last update, I’m pleased to say! During my visit to Cuerden Classics on September 5, Andy Schultz suggested I speak to Centurion Blast Cleaning in Leyland to see if they might be able to get the rust of the chassis for me; they have done some superb work for him in the past, so I decided to give it a try.
I turned up at CBC’s premises one evening after work; they’re appropriately located on the old Leyland Motors site in Leyland itself, and quite easy to find. I’m still getting used to introducing the project to people but was pleased to find the chaps there were very amenable and genuinely interested in what we’re trying to do. They specialise in shot blasting of pretty much anything from the smallest component up to entire heavy goods vehicles, and were happy to take on the job of the van chassis. In fact, not only did they offer to blast clean it, they are also going to powder coat it in a gloss black finish, giving this most vulnerable part of the vehicle maximum protection from the harsh environment experienced on British roads. They have offered to make a start on it on September 13, meaning I have some serious welding to do in a short space of time!
September 5, 2010
Less than a week after my last update I find myself with a fair amount to report. The first few days of September brought good weather, so rather than strip the front suspension down as I'd originally planned, this process was abandoned part way through and a start was made on the cab. Both seats were removed (with some difficulty due to the amount of rust in the footwells); both seats are pretty worn out and will need fully refurbishing, and interestingly the driver's and passenger's side seats had been swapped over at some point. With the remains of the rubber flooring ripped away, the horrors beneath were revealed. About half the driver's side floor has completely rotted away, with nothing but a heap of scale left. The nearside floor is slightly better, though the sill that provides most of the strength needs a lot of work.
A quick look at the various websites and parts catalogues revealed a potential panels bill of £300 that the project can ill-afford, so another solution had to be found. I already had a 2m x 1m sheet of 1mm thick steel in store left over from another project, so decided to make the necessary repair sections. While this sheet is thinner than the original panels, it should be remembered that the majority of the van panels are not structural due to the presence of a separate chassis; strengthening pieces will be added where required. Templates were made from paper and the measurements transferred to the steel, but the accurate folding required to produce some of the flanges needed was way beyond what I could achieve with my limited toolkit.
The beginning of Week Six of the project, and another helper has been added to the list. Enter Andy Schultz of Cureden Classics who kindly offered me the use of his workshop facilities, which included a metal guillotine and a metal folder large enough to bend panels the length of the front floor. Within two hours on Sunday I had made about 75% of the necessary repair sections without the project incurring any cost. Special thanks to Andy and his good lady for allowing me to intrude on his Sunday lunchtime! It was also interesting to see the MG T-Series TF (a ground-up rebuild) and Spridget he's currently working on - truly impressive workmanship and great inspiration.
The engine
Another major step forward has been made at Grundy's, meanwhile. Despite the fact that I only delivered the van engine to Mark on September 1, I arrived there on the morning September 4 to discover that he'd already begin stripping it down to assess its condition. The good news - it's a minter! There is very little wear anywhere - the bores just need a light clean up, the crank bearings and big ends are perfect and only the cylinder head will need work to convert it to run on unleaded petrol, and we'll add a new set of piston rings to make sure the engine doesn't burn oil when it's reassembled. As the various parts came off, the original gaskets left behind showed that the engine had never been dismantled since it left the factory 41 years ago, backing up the 51,700 miles on the clock as genuine. Reassuring stuff, and one less thing to have to finance!
August 31, 2010
Okay, so it's been a month since I updated this page - I've had a two-week holiday to contend with - but significant progress has been made on the project nonetheless. While awaiting the repair section for the offside chassis leg, a start was made on dismantling the van itself; the first horrors have now been revealed!
I started by removing the bumper and front panel, complete with radiator. The rad was subjected to a quick static test and appears to be sound, but the bodywork is a catalogue of woe! The nearside bumper iron came away with the front panel, such is the state of the inner wing! Due to the fact that many of the bolts were seized solid, I decided to remove the outer wings together with the front panel. Unfortunately, when the wings were removed, the weakened state of the chassis and inner wings became apparent as the engine suddenly dropped about a foot through the crumbling panels!
A quick look around the engine bay revealed that several items are missing - the horn, fuse box cover, part of the wiring loom, a couple of hoses and even a rocker cover nut - all of which will have to be replaced at some point, but none of which present much of a problem. The engine and gearbox were covered in a thick layer of sludge, so I felt it safe to assume that the van has had infrequent maintenance in its former life, indicating that a full overhaul of both was likely. To save strain on the gearbox mountings, the engine was separated from it and removed from the vehicle. It was then delivered to Grundy's Motor Engineers in Penwortham, where Mark has kindly agreed to strip down and assess its condition.
The gearbox was a bit of a challenge to remove; in common with the vast majority of Minors the gearbox cover was a pig to get off, with about a dozen of the brass screws firmly seized, so a good couple of hours were spent drilling them out. The stay wire was also firmly rusted fast, so the nut securing this to the crossmember had to be split. Once this was accomplished it was a fairly simple matter to remove the 'box (not forgetting to drain the oil first!), and a pleasant surprise awaited me once I had done so.
Where my spanner slipped while undoing a bolt, I noticed some gold paint showing through the half-inch thick layer of grime that covered the 'box; a thorough clean with paraffin and a scrubbing brush revealed what I suspected - the gearbox was a 'Gold Seal' one, i.e. a genuine B.M.C. (factory original) replacement unit, and it appears to be in fairly good condition. Only time will tell if it performs as well as it looks - but it does look good!
And here's the proof:
The chassis leg repair section has now arrived, courtesy of Stephen Leadbetter, and work will resume on the replacement chassis this weekend. Once that's sorted, the next task will be to repair the cab floors so that the cab itself can be removed without it folding up on itself! Keep watching to see how we do it on our shoestring budget!
July 31, 2010
I'm pleased to say that work started in earnest today! As already noted elsewhere on the site, it had already been recorded that the chassis was rotten beyond repair, but I was fortunate enough to be given another, slightly less-rotten example that could be fully-refurbished for minimal cost. This was duly lifted into the back of the Multipla and taken to Grundy's Motor Engineers; Mark kindly consented to me using his new ramp as a flat bed on which to cut the rot out of the chassis with minimal distortion. The majority of the rusting had taken place on the front offside chassis leg, including the section that holds the front steady arm, so we've decided that rather than make a new piece, for the sake of accuracy we're going to have to use the correct repair section. So, for the very first time we're on the scrounge! Can anyone help by donating this part?
We've left the rotten section of the front chassis leg in for now, just to hold it together until we can get the repair section in. The rear sections of the chassis are both rotten, but we're confident that home-made repair sections can be made to fit - so much so that we're on with making them right now frim 16swg steel. Once repaired, we're hoping to get the chassis shot-blasted and painted. But first, we've to get the seized master cylinder and pedal assembly out of its former home inside the chassis leg, but to do this we must stock up on oxygen, acetylene and expletives!
Plans for the course of the next week are to start stripping off the rotten front wings to see what lies beneath.... and hopefully getting the engine and gearbox out and stripped - if the Lancashire weather holds out for more than a few minutes!