Metal turns into rust, then into thin air...

Today I removed the floor patch under the driver-side floor. It's not a good feeling to find yet more holy metal, but it has to be done...

And while I was down there I noticed a hole around one of the rear spring hangers. I'm just going to ignore it for the moment as I've got enough on my plate to think about at the minute with the crossmember, chassis legs and the holes in the floor. Here you can see how bad the nearside chassis leg is by the light coming up through the floor...

Book - "Original Morris Minor" by Ray Newell

This is a cracking little book. It's an interesting and very easy read that covers the various versions of the saloons, travellers and commercial vehicles in great detail, with excellent high-quality photos. It even goes into detail of which production changes were made, when, and why, and from which car numbers they came into effect. This info is excellent use for closet purists like me, but is also pretty interesting to read about how far the minor came from when it was originally launched.

There's also a load of information useful for achieving originality on cars, including which colours were used on which cars, together with interiors, and even what the original toolkit should include etc. There's also an excellent reference on chassis numbers, which can be used to find out the original colour for a car, what spec, etc. It also explains how to tell if a convertible is a factory original, if the car was produced for military use etc, and how to check an original Minor Million.
Pro's: Excellent reference for achieving originality, and finding out about the history of the Minor in general.
Con's: The pictures inside are probably a little to perfect for originality. I've also found a couple of errors after speaking to other owners, and its probably not too much use if you're not fussed about originality anyway.

Removing the Offside Front Suspension

Today presented the perfect opportunity for working on the car. The missus was out for the day, she took the young'n with her, and she had left without issuing a list of tasks. Excellent.

Despite removing the nearside suspension in August, I only got round to doing the other side today - and I've really noticed a difference in temperature since the last time. Still its no problem for me, as my skills aren't limited to slowly pulling apart an old car. I can also stick cardboard together to keep my bum from getting cold...

Anyway. This side came off pretty much the same as last time, although the tie bar came off pretty easy this time, and I needed a bigger weight to split the ball joint...

...and the rear nut on the tie-bar bracket was hard to shift. I tried a few things, but found wacking a spanner it through a bit of would seemed to shift it pretty well.

When I removed the nearside suspension, the front lower arm was damaged due to a seized lower fulcrum pin. I expected that offside lower arm would be damaged too (and actually bought 2 replacement parts from an autojumble) but it seems fine. The lower fulcrum pin is siezed though and is worn a little as a result. I had to hacksaw the end off one side because it had a shoulder that prevented it from fitting through the aperture in the suspension arm (I assume that came from being whacked in the past)...

The tie bar came in done without any bother...

Then it was the torsion bar. A bit of penetrating oil into the nuts and they came off without much additional headscratching - or grinding.

Removing the torsion bar also revealed more evidence of cack maintenance by whoever laid the car up to rest 30 years ago. The rubber bushes for the torsion bar have worn through on one side...

A bit of a nerdy observation I had; the replacement lower suspension arms that I bought at an autojumble are a little different in profile. I'm guessing that MOWOG change the profile to avoid any stress points and a possible fracture point. The picture is a bit blurry so I've highlighted the differences in profile.