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.

Removing the Nearside Front Suspension

The chassis legs need sorting and to see what's what and make the repairs (whatever they may be) the front suspension needs to come off. This week, I have been mostly tackling the nearside...

The Haynes book said remove the tie bar first, but the bolt just wouldnt shift, so I'm going to come back to it later. Great start.

I carefully removed the brake drum then wiped it down inside with a damp rag. The brake dust inside the drum will likely be asbestos so dont want to take any chances there. I just chucked the brake shoes. They're old and I will be putting some new ones on anyway when I reassemble.

Removing the hub was a little tricky as I didn't have a hub-puller, and any leverage easily slips and just spins the hub. A post on the http://www.morrisminorowners.co.uk/ forum and I was back the next day to try a couple of things. It turns out that using a wooden lever was less prone to slipping than a metal one and the hub came off easily...

With the hub off, I thought I'd start on the suspension itself. I removed the nut holding the top trunnion onto the damper arm, then decided to try and remove the steering arm. I got as far as removing the nut, and no matter how hard I hit it, the steering arm did not want to shift. On reflection, I dont know why I was trying to take it out anyway. There's nothing that needs to be done to it, and it's not like it suffers from wear etc, so I'm happy to leave as it is!

Defeated by the steering arm, I thought I'd try removing the track rod end. This was done by removing the bolt on its underside that held it to the steering arm, then since I don't have a ball joint splitter, I shocked it out of the steering arm by giving it a good hearty wack with a hammer.

With everything pretty much off that needs to be, I removed the fixings that held the front half of the lower suspension arm in place, and took it off. Note that bloody tie bar still floating about.

 

I felt a bit of play in the bottom trunnion earlier on, and it looks like this is the source. Excessive wear on the bottom fulcrum pin. According to the guys on morrisminorowners.co.uk this is probably caused by the fulcrum pin becoming stuck inside the trunnion, and not rotating as it should. Notice the "notch" on both ends of the fulcrum pin...

 

 It turns out, that this fulcrum pin not moving freely as it should, has also caused this elongated hole in the suspension arm. Suppose I'll be needing a new one of these - and I hope the torsion bars aren't buggered as a result.

I recon I've got the same to look forward to on the other side of the car. The problem has been caused by poor maintenance, so it's unlikely that one side has been maintained well, and the other not. Still, I've learned what can happen if things aren't greased/maintained properly.

Book - "Guide to Purchase & DIY Restoration of the Morris Minor & 1000" by Lindsay Porter

I bought this on Ebay a few months ago and have used it quite a bit for the stuff so far. It contains a brief introduction to the car and its history, and a useful guide to buying (faults to look for, checks to do etc etc) as well as the normal maintenace stuff.

Its probably only any real good for someone without much experience (like me) because the stuff inside seems pretty straight forward and I doubt that anyone with a good idea of what to do would need this really. I've found some useful tips etc in there, but I have a pretty limited knowledge of this sort of thing, and for the most part even I think that what the book is saying is common sense. It's still useful to me though - to make sure I'm doing things right.

There is a useful reference section at the back of the book which includes colour schemes, explaination of chassis numbers, and production changes.

This is now out of print I think, but its still available on Amazon.com last time I checked.

Pro's: The step by step stuff is useful to follow for beginners like me.
Con's: The layout of the pictures/steps in the book aren't the easiest to keep track of.

Cleaning the gearbox

As I'm removing stuff, I'm trying to clean it up. Hopefully this will make it a bit of a cleaner and easier job when it comes to putting things back together. The gearbox was pretty minging dirty and it took a bit of shifting with a wire-brush so thought I'd try using some Gunk Engine Degreaser. I mixed it 1:1 with paraffin just to make it last a little longer, then used a jet-washer to rinse it all off. The paraffin left a oily residue so used a light brush of neat gunk to clean this and then jet-washed it off. I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Before...

After...

Date of manufacture - 28th December 1955...

Gearbox out

This was a bit of a doddle to do actually. First I drained the oil out of the box - not sure if it should have been "pond green" though...

Then from inside the car, removed the gearlever, the clutch linkage, speedo drive, and the earth cable, etc...

With a jack under the gearbox crossmember, undo the four bolts that hold it to the chassis legs...

...and slowly lower the jack, bringing the gearbox down a bit. The propshaft is still attached so the gearbox couldn't be lowered down fully.

The gearbox just pulled off the propshaft. This is going to take a bit of cleaning...

Woohoo! Engine Finally out!

It's not money, family, or work - but my tendency to fanny-about that's going to be the biggest thing that slows me down on this car.

Finally got the engine out. I undid the bolts on the engine mount towers, and jacked up the engine to prise it off the gear box a little. Then my dad pretty much took over and we lifted it out. No need to mess around with a block and tackle etc etc (as I originally thought). Gave the Engine bay a little bit of a scrub after, to get rid of some of the crap.

Anyway, the photos..

Removing the Engine - Part 1

I never thought that removing the engine was going to be simple, but I didn't think that it would involve as much as it does. So no, the engine isn't out yet, but I'm on my way...

Firstly, unbolt the clamp between the exhaust manifold and the exhaust downpipe...

remove the carburettor from the inlet manifold...

Remove the heater hose from the engine...

Unbolt and remove the engine steady between the engine and the bulkhead...

Remove the ignition coil, dynamo, and starter motor...

Inside the car, remove the gearbox cover. This is possibly not needed to remove the engine, but it'll make it easier and I'm going to remove the gearbox anyway. I wanted to remove all of the brass screws that hold it in place without drilling them out - this will make it easier when it comes to putting the cover back on.

Remove the bolts that hold the gearbox bell-housing to the engine...

Loosen the bolts on the bottom of the engine-mount towers. To avoid losing them, I wont remove the bolts until the engine actually comes out of the engine bay.

I gave the engine a bit of rocking, but its clear its still pretty stuck to the gearbox. I think the plan next is to undo the clamp holding the gearbox to the gearbox crossmember under the gearbox cover. Then jack up the gearbox a little to take its weight while the engine is hoisted with a block and tackle out of the engine bay.

Best laid plans and all that though...

Pig Ears Gone

In the interest of originality, I wanted rid of the after-market indicators that came with the car. It should have semiphore indicators but at some point in the past someone has disabled them and replaced them with these...

They were attached to the roof on some vans (I think because the van back made it hard to see the semiphores from behind - or something like that) and were also used on the BMW Isetta.

Anyway, I stuck them on Ebay and they went for £17.50 to a nice chap in Australia. Result!

Grill off

This took me longer than it should have. Mainly because I was so particular about saving the original nuts and bolts, that I took each of them off carefully with plenty of WD40, and cleaned each with a wire-brush afterwards. Still, I eventually got it off - even though I had to writhe the grill off the last bolt.

Next job will be to take the engine out - at least that's the idea anyway...