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...